Japan’s economy has been in relative decline compared to many other developed countries. Japan sold 4.2 million cars in 2022 which is the lowest in 45 years. The cars that were sold were the cheaper K cars like the Honda N-Box and Toyota Yaris. The N-Box and Yaris are 1.6 million yen or about $12,500.
4,201,321 new cars in total were sold in Japan in 2022, a fall of 5.6% year-on-year and the fourth consecutive year that the figures have dropped.
Japan has about 38% market share for the mini car category vehicles and this is growing by about 15% per year.
Japan’s per-capita nominal GDP is down to about $35,000 dollars. The USA is at about $75,000 per capita income. Japan has fallen to less than half the per capita GDP of the USA.
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One factor driving the decline in auto sales is changing youth culture. Young guys are becoming “herbivores”, meaning they are no longer interested in buying fancy cars to impress girls. When living in Japan in the 90’s, I used to party with a guy who had a “Z” that was quite nice. He was good looking and had attractive girls around him. He was definitely NOT a herbivore. The herbivore thing started in the late 90’s and greatly increased during the aughts. I am told that more than 50% of Japanese youth today are totally asexual. For various reasons I will not get into, I believe this trend is spreading and will continue to spread worldwide. Sexual activity among American teens has dropped considerably over the past decade for reason NOT limited to social media.
Japan is in terminal decline due to aging and population decline. They are now losing over half a million people per year and that number is growing larger every year. They have entered a demographic death spiral that may be impossible to exit. Expect Japan to become increasingly irrelevant.
This is really sad to see, as japan has one of the worlds most fascinating cultures and is a prosperous, peaceful, democratic country that has contributed so much to the world, post ww2.
Many countries through history have had their populations fall by up to 50%. The idea that this is “impossible to exit” is simply disproven by examples like Germany [1], Italy[2] and even China[3].
1 Germany lost up to 30% of its population over 3 decades in the 30 year war.
2. Italy lost up to 50% of its population during the decline of the roman empire 200-450 AD.
3. China lost up to 50% of the population during the 3 kingdom period (same timeframe as the Roman decline, and possibly related).
All of those example were from eras when people had a high birthrate with population constrained by agricultural infrastructure. Kill half the people and the remainder just work a few more fields per capita, kids get more food and survive to adulthood more, and on you go.
To replicate that today, the population will have to decline until we can’t maintain the infrastructure for the condom factories.