Why Aren’t U.S. Cars Popular in Japan?
ALANA SEMUELS notes:
“But protectionism
is not the full explanation for why Japanese people don’t buy foreign cars.
There are no import tariffs on cars, for example, while the U.S. and European
Union impose 2.5 percent and 10 percent tariffs. And while Japanese cars are
right-hand-drive, requiring manufacturing modifications before American cars
can be sold there, this is no different from many other markets where foreign
cars are prevalent.
Instead, the
problem is in large part that American car dealers have been hesitant to invest
in the kind of dealer network that consumers like Shujiro Urata have come to
expect. “The way Japanese consumers buy cars is very different,” Deborah Elms,
the executive director of the Asian Trade Center, told me. “Yet the Americans
have not invested in a dealer network to break into the market.””Related:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-07/the-u-s-and-japan-don-t-have-a-trade-problem