In the first half of 2022, automobile sales in South Korea decreased 11.3% year-on-year to 810,294 units. Although the tax break for individual consumption tax was extended until the end of June, the vehicle supply shortage due to the stagnation of parts supply resulted in a drop in sales. Locally-made vehicles decreased 10.8% year-on-year to 669,251 units, while imported vehicles fell 13.7% year-on- year to 141,043 units. Looking at the full year of 2022, the individual consumption tax cut will be further extended until the end of the year, but stillRead more...

Automobile sales in Taiwan decreased 8.4% year-on-year to 203,000 units in the first half of 2022. Although Taiwan's economy is expected to grow steadily, mainly driven by exports of electronic components, the automobile market is shrinking. Monthly sales volume since June 2021 have been falling below the results for the same month of the previous year mainly due to global shortage of vehicle supply. In addition, since April 2022, COVID-19 infections have been rapidly expanding in Taiwan which hinders economic activities such as retail sales. The goveRead more...

Vietnam’s automobile sales in the first six months of 2022 increased 34.1% year-on-year to 201,840 units according to the announcement of the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (VAMA) which only releases data on member companies. If the sales total of two non-VAMA members Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam (HTCV), a local subsidiary of Hyundai, and VinFast, a Vietnamese manufacturer which entered the market in 2019, is added to VAMA’s figure, combined sales reach an historic high level of 252,932 units in the first half of 2022. Bar graph: Vietnam:Read more...

Malaysia's automobile sales in the first half of 2022 increased 33.0% year-on-year to 331,386 units. In addition to the nationwide lockdown in the first half of 2021 which negatively affected sales, the relatively sharp increase in the first six months of 2022 is due to rush demand prior to the ending of sales tax exemption on automobiles at the end of June 2022 and economic recovery following the pandemic. Malaysia: Sales Volume of Automobiles by Type (Actual: 2017-2021, YTD June 2021/2022 / Forecast: 2022) Malaysia: 2022 Market Forecast by MalaysiaRead more...

Indonesia's automobile sales in the first half of 2022 increased 20.8% year-on-year to 475,321 units. The increase was underpinned by the reintroduction of the luxury sales tax in February 2022 imposed on automobiles. Although the tax cut will be gradually phased out by September 2022, full-year sales are expected to reach 900,000 units according to GAIKINDO’s announcement in July 2022. Although there is a shortage of semiconductors, but it mostly affects vehicles priced at 500 million IDR or more, while the impact on the mass-market segment is expected Read more...

Thailand’s automobile sales in the first six months of 2022 increased by 14.5% year-on-year to 427,296 units. The performance of the same period of the previous year, which is the target figure for comparison, remained at a low level due to the resurgence of COVID-19, resulting in a double-digit increase in the first half of 2022. However, it is still at a level of 80% compared to the first half of 2019 (524,000 units) before COVID-19. A gradual recovery was hampered by a decrease in production due to the shortage of semiconductors, a rise in vehicle priRead more...

As of February 2022, Gogoro was marketing four series of BEV motorcycle products, the Gogoro 1, Gogoro 2, Gogoro 3 and Gogoro VIVA. After launching the high-end 1 series as the first model, Gogoro has added the 2 series, 3 series and VIVA models with lower selling prices. The downward expansion of its product lineup has been a feature of Gogoro's product strategy so far. All models developed by Gogoro use swappable batteries, with the 1, 2 and 3 series and VIVA’s advanced grades powered by two batteries, but the VIVA’s basic grade only powered by one baRead more...

Leading BEV Sports Motorcycle Maker with Presence in Over 100 Countries Zero Motorcycles is a leading manufacturer of BEV sports bikes, headquartered in California, USA. The company sold over 3,500 units mainly in Europe and the United States in 2021. Zero develops battery packs and motors suitable for sports bikes in-house. The company also develops the Cypher Operating System, an OS for BEV bikes that links and manages the battery management system, motor control, stability control, charging system, connectivity module and other functions. As of JanuaRead more...

Super SOCO has two product series, the T series of BEV motorcycles (TC-MAX, TC, TS) and the C series of BEV scooters (CPX, CUX, CT). In February 2021, Vmoto Soco Manufacturing, a joint venture with Australia's Vmoto, with which Super SOCO has a strategic alliance for production and sales, live-streamed the "2021 Vmoto Soco World Premiere" on its YouTube channel and announced two BEV motorcycles, the TC Wanderer (TC 2021) and TS Street Hunter (TS 2021), and a BEV scooter the CUmini. According to local media reports, the TC 2021 and TS 2021 are expected toRead more...

Gogoro entered Taiwan’s BEV motorcycle market in 2015 with the launch of its first product, the Gogoro 1 series (Gogoro Smartscooter 1), and since has established a dominant position in the country. In 2021, Gogoro sold 74,000 BEV motorcycles in Taiwan (new registration data released by MOTC). Gogoro’s market share of Taiwan’s total motorcycle market (809,000 units) was 9.1%, but it controlled 78.7% of the country’s BEV motorcycle market (94,000 units) in 2021. Gogoro has also launched an alliance named "Powered By Gogoro Network (PBGN)" to provide itRead more...

Between 2015 and 2019, Niu Technologies has launched four BEV scooter series, the NQi, MQi, UQi and Gova. The best-selling model in 2020 was the low-priced UQi series, but in 2021, the Gova series, which can be purchased for 3,000-4,000 CNY, is expected to be the best-selling model. The Gova series is a moped with a maximum speed of 25km/h. It is mostly sold in China. Niu aims to expand sales overseas, especially in Europe, where environmental awareness is high. The company mainly sells BEV scooters the NQi GTS and MQi GT in Europe, which are equivaleRead more...

Italy's Askoll EVA, founded in 2014, is Europe's second largest BEV motorcycle manufacturer, following Spain's Scutum Logistic, which sells Silence brand BEV scooters. Askoll EVA is part of the electric mobility business of Italy's Askoll Group, whose main areas of expertise are electric pumps and motors for home appliances. The eS series was launched in 2015, focusing on sales mainly to delivery companies such as postal, pizza chains and home delivery operators in Italy and other European countries. The EVOlution series was introduced in 2019 followed bRead more...

Europe’s Largest BEV Motorcycle Manufacturer Scutum Logistic of Spain, which develops, manufactures and sells Silence brand BEV scooters, is the top seller in Europe among BEV motorcycle manufacturers. Established as a startup in 2012, Scutum’s investors are Acciona Mobility, an electric scooter rental company under the infrastructure and energy conglomerate Acciona Group, Caixa Capital Risc, a venture capital firm of La Caixa, Spain’s third largest bank, and Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), Spain’s industrial technology develRead more...

Super SOCO is an emerging BEV motorcycle manufacturer in Shanghai, China, established in 2015. Its main products are scooters such as the CUX and CPX, and sports-type BEV motorcycles such as the TS and TC. The founder, Mr. Xie Yuxian, was a former motorcycle development manager at Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Many of the core members of X-IDEA, a design company in Shanghai responsible for Super SOCO’s product development, also came from Honda R&D Center. Super SOCO has formed a strategic alliance with Australian BEV motorcycle manufacturer and distributor Vmoto LRead more...

ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (commonly known as Ola), India's largest ride-hailing service provider, operates mainly through two companies; Ola Fleet Technologies, which provides ride-hailing services, and Ola Electric Mobility (Ola EM), which handles electric vehicle business. The group also includes Ola Foods, a food delivery business, Ola Financial Services, a payment and insurance business, and its own think tank, Ola Mobility Institute. Ola EM was established in 2017 to launch and expand ride-hailing services, utilizing BEVs. The company was financialRead more...

Niu Technologies is a Chinese smart urban mobility solutions company established in September 2014. In addition to developing, manufacturing and selling BEV scooters, it also develops its own fleet vehicle management platform. Products are mostly sold in China, but since 2019, Niu has been providing BEV scooters and platforms to sharing service providers in Europe and the United States, and is also strengthening its retail sales business for private users mainly in Europe. By 2021, more than 1 million units of electric mobility (BEV scooters / mopeds, elRead more...

Gogoro is a Taiwanese electric motorcycle startup that was established in 2011, launching production and sales in 2015. Apart from motorcycles, the company has its own battery swapping network based on its own battery swapping system. The company has already established a leading position in the Taiwanese electric motorcycle market. The core of the company’s business strategy is to expand globally using the Hardware as a Service (HaaS) business model, focusing on swappable batteries and charging infrastructure, rather than on the manufacture and sales ofRead more...

In July 2022, Toyota Motor began selling the Urban Cruiser Hyryder in India. The vehicle is a strong hybrid compact SUV developed by Suzuki Motor. The Urban Cruiser Hyryder is positioned between Toyota’s Fortuner, a midsize SUV, and the Urban Cruiser, a compact SUV supplied by Suzuki on an OEM basis. Toyota plans to invest a total of 48 billion INR to build a “local production for local consumption” system for electric vehicles. In June 2022, a production line for electrified parts went into operation at Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts, which is a Toyota Read more...

Toyota Motor’s automobile sales in India dropped 17.5% to 33.161 units in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year. MPVs accounted for over 42% of all sales following by SUVs with over 35%. Production declined 8.8% during the same period to 20,860 units. Bar graph: Toyota Motor: Production and Sales Volume of Automobiles in India (2017-2021, YTD March 2021-2022) Pie chart: Toyota Motor: Sales Composition of Automobiles by Model in India (2021) Tables: Toyota Motor: Sales, Production and Export Volume of AutomobileRead more...

Japanese automakers use ASEAN as an important automobile production base. As global automakers are gradually shifting from ICEV-centered production around the world to BEV manufacturing, the same issue has also become a hot topic in ASEAN. In Thailand, BEV purchase subsidy is provided on condition that local production will be introduced in the future. Other countries are also aiming to promote the BEV industry and have already made some efforts toward this goal. On the other hand, as shown in the map below, low labor cost is the most competitive factor Read more...

Honda Motor’s automobile sales in Thailand inched up 1.1% to 35,766 units in the first five months of 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year. Although most models declined, the hybrid HR-V, launched in November 2021, added 7,458 units to the total, saving the manufacturer from plunging into the red. In the first five months of 2022, hybrid vehicles accounted for 26.8% of all vehicle sales, going up from 5.4% during the same period of 2021. Bar graph: Honda Motor: Sales Volume of Automobiles by Type and HEV Share of Total Sales in ThailaRead more...

Mazda Motor's 2021 global factory utilization rate fell 5.1pp year-on-year to 55.7%. Production volume in Japan decreased only slightly compared to the previous year, thanks to declining impact of COVID-19. However, production significantly decreased in countries where the pandemic reemerged, mainly in China and Southeast Asia. The overall factory utilization rate declined due to the stagnation of logistics and the global shortage of semiconductors. Bar graph: Mazda Motor: Utilization Rate of Factories by Country / Region (2018-2021) Bar graph: MazdaRead more...

Audi's vehicle sales in Japan increased 1.0% year-on-year to 22,535 units in 2021. In 2020, when many foreign brands decreased by around 15-20% in Japan, Audi’s rate of decline was relatively small at 7.9%, maintaining a sense of stability among brands with an annual sales scale of over 20,000 units. In January 2022, Audi announced its e-tron strategy to promote electrification in the Japanese market. In Japan, the automaker intends to phase out the sales of conventional vehicles by 2033. The Q4 e-tron, a compact SUV, is scheduled to go on sale in the fRead more...

Porsche's vehicle sales in Japan decreased 3.8% year-on-year to 7,009 units in 2021, becoming the first year with a drop in sales after 11 consecutive years of increase since 2009. Porsche's worldwide sales in 2021 exceeded 300,000 units for the first time. While Porsche is increasing sales in the US and China, demand in Japan has been lingering around 7,000 units for the last five years. With the aim of expanding sales in Japan, Porsche opened a brand experience facility Porsche Experience Center Tokyo in October 2021. In addition, Porsche Japan is expaRead more...

Daihatsu Motor’s factory utilization rate in Japan was 84.0% in 2021, down 4.0pp from the previous year. The automaker’s factory utilization rate was close to 90% from 2017 to 2019 but dropped several percentage points below in 2021 for the second consecutive year. The decline is due to the suspension of operations triggered by the outbreak of the new coronavirus in domestic factories, the shortage of parts supply from corona hit Southeast Asia, and production adjustments resulting from the shortage of semiconductors. Daihatsu Motor: Operation Status Read more...

Mitsubishi Motors' factory utilization rate in Japan was 51.4% in FY 2021, up 6.5pp from the previous year. Domestic automobile production reached 421,000 units, up 14.7% from the previous year. Although both factory utilization rate and production improved from 2020, the increase was far from significant considering that factory utilization rate was 80.9% and production reached 661,000 units in FY 2018 which were the highest in the past five years. Bar graph: Mitsubishi Motors: Operating Rate and Production Volume in Japan (Actual: FY 2015-2020,Read more...

Kobe Steel, which manufactures steel sheets for automobiles among other products, is working toward carbon neutrality by 2050. As part of this effort, the machinery business division was reorganized in April 2022. A new business promotion headquarters will be set up within this division to accelerate the development of equipment and devices related to carbon neutrality and the creation of new businesses. In October 2021, in collaboration with its subsidiary Kobelco Eco-Solutions, Kobe Steel started developing a process to effectively utilize steel slag gRead more...

Honda Motor’s global automobile production capacity peaked at 5.7 million units / year in 2019, but shrank to 5.48 million units in 2021 and to 5.14 million units as of June 2022. The decline in production capacity is due to several plant closures around the world. Honda discontinued production in the Philippines in March 2020, in Argentina around May 2020, in the UK in July 2021, in Turkey in September 2021 and at the Sayama Automobile Plant in Japan at the end of December 2021. In contrast, in anticipation of rising demand in China, Honda is building tRead more...

In 2021, automobile sales of BMW and its premium small car brand MINI decreased 2.9% from the previous year to 54,471 units in Japan, dropping even below 2020’s level when the pandemic wreaked havoc. The BMW brand inched up 0.5% to 35,905 units, achieving a slight recovery similarly to other foreign brands in Japan. On the other hand, the MINI brand declined 9.8% to 18,211 units, resulting in a drop in overall sales. BMW and MINI’s share in the foreign brand market decreased 0.9pp to 21.0%, continuing to decline for the fifth consecutive year from 25.6% Read more...

The global PHEV / BEV / FCEV market increased 2.1-fold from the previous year to 6,706,428 units in 2021 (The data is based on sales results of 42 countries around the world [sales data of some countries was substituted with production or registration data] which account for 85% of the world’s total automobile market.). China accounted for 52.0% of the global market, going up 2.7-fold to 3,487,100 units. China was followed by Europe with 33.7%, North America with 10.9%, South Korea with 1.7% and Japan with a mere 0.7%. Graph: World: Market Size of PHERead more...

Nidec Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of electric motors, aims to raise sales to 10 trillion JPY in 2030, of which 4 trillion JPY is expected to be generated by its automotive business. Nidec aims to use BEV and other electric vehicle drive motors to capture top share in the world in an effort to achieve its goal. In addition, the company is working on expanding its product lineup of E-Axle that combines motors, inverters and gears, increasing production capacity ahead of other companies, and boosting in-house production of parts and productiRead more...

Japan’s imported automobile sales increased 8.4% in 2021 from the previous year to 344,552 units. Japanese brand vehicles imported from abroad rose 37.1% to 84,800 units, pushing up overall imported vehicle sales. Nissan, which started importing the Kicks in June 2020, increased 81.7% to 43,872 units, rising to second place after Mercedes-Benz. Looking at monthly sales, in the first eight months, sales results surpassed those of the previous year mostly because of the negative impact of the pandemic in 2020. However, from September sales fell below the pRead more...

Honda Motor is accelerating the development of electric, and software / connected areas. The automaker plans to invest 8 trillion JPY in R&D in 10 years until 2030, increasing R&D expenses by about 15% compared to the previous 10 years when it injected 7 trillion JPY in R&D. Of the 8 trillion JPY, 3.5 trillion JPY will be used for in electrification and software. Honda held a briefing on automobile electrification in April 2022. The automaker plans to release 30 BEV models by 2030. Ten BEV models are planned to be launched until 2027 including the e:NRead more...

In China, a total of 24 OEM-financed companies were operating automobile finance sector as of April 2022. At the end of 2020, total assets of automobile finance businesses stood at 977.5 billion CNY, up 7.9% from the previous year (this figure also includes Hawtai Auto Finance which ended automobile finance operations in June 2021). In addition to commercial banks, OEM-led automobile finance companies are also facing intensifying competition as financing from online companies and leasing companies continues to diversify. With the growth of the automobRead more...

Demand for purchasing goods via e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and the accompanying small-lot delivery services are expanding year by year. Similar trends can be seen in India, ASEAN and China. For such last-mile delivery, various vehicles such as vans, trucks, three wheelers, motorcycles, and bicycles are used because the required delivery method differs from city to city. Looking at the van market in India and Indonesia, Asia’s second and third most populous nations, India maintained a market size of over 100,000 units, exceeding 200,000 units at Read more...

Honda Motor’s local subsidiary Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) is stepping up export activities in India. HMSI has been exporting products to 40 countries around the world and plans to continue expanding exports in the future. HMSI’s cumulative export volume of motorcycles from India reached 3 million units in March 2022. In April 2021, HMSI announced to expand its overseas business division launching a new organization. The new entity integrates sales, engineering, development, purchasing, and quality functions to build an optimal system for expRead more...

In April 2022, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), Honda's Indian motorcycle company, released a roadmap on its future business strategy in India. The four growth areas outlined in the roadmap are (1) expansion of exports to developed countries, (2) introduction of flex-fuel vehicles, (3) expansion of low-priced motorcycles, and (4) introduction of electric motorcycles. HMSI has already exported products to 40 countries such as European nations and Japan, and plans to continue expanding exports to developed countries. Honda plans to introduce flex-fRead more...

Battery swapping is gaining popularity in China’s electric bicycle delivery service sector thanks to its convenience and low initial investment. While battery charging requires 6-8 hours to fully recharge a battery, battery swapping reduces this time to mere seconds. In addition, battery charging makes it necessary for delivery drivers to purchase extra batteries in order to be able to work while the original batteries are being charged, creating a financial burden for drivers. In case of battery swapping, there is no need for buying extra batteries. ForRead more...