The Internal Combustion Engine Strikes Back
The Nikkei [sub] detected a brand-new trend: Cars with an internal combustion engine. In Japan, 20 percent of new cars sold are hybrids. Elsewhere, especially in China and Europe, hybrid cars have a bit of a hard time. “Although being environmentally friendly is important, saving money is tops,” an unnamed Nissan exec told the Tokyo wire, and added that consumers in these markets look more closely at how much they can save on fuel costs in relation to vehicle prices. Now this trend is reaching Japan.
Volkswagen has always been a hybrid skeptic and instead did bet on making engines smaller. “Sales of Volkswagen vehicles reached 33,414 units in the January-July period, leaping 22% on the year,” in Japan, the Nikkei notes. (Closed market propagandists take note: If you give the Japanese what they want, that allegedly closed market suddenly opens…)
Nissan will sell a new Note subcompact next month that “is equipped with an engine that has been slimmed from 1.5 liters to 1.2 liters. A supercharger keeps output the same as the current model,” The Nikkei writes. That car gets 25.2km per liter, says The Nikkei, “almost on par with Honda’s Fit hybrid, but is some 150,000 yen cheaper.” That’s nearly $2,000, and you can buy a lot of gas with the savings.
If The Nikkei is right with spotting this trend, then there might be hope for Mazda and its Skyactiv technology.
Even in the U.S. the trend veers back to the lowly ICE. In its July 2012 market round-up, Hybridcars says:
“The take rate for hybrids of 2.7 to 2.8 percent has been consistent the last three months and below the 3.4 percent achieved in March and April when fuel prices were higher.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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This is by no means the definitive word on the subject, and to boot this is old data, but I have a chart from a consulting firm that took a USA-spec 2002 Ford Focus and ran it through the US, EU, and Japanese test cycles. It registered 31 mpg in the US cycle, 27 on the EU cycle, and 23 in the Japanese test. Interestingly, at that time the average mph of the USA test was 30 mph, the EU version 21 mph, and the Japanese one an unbelievable (to me at least!) 15 mph average speed. The Japanese test broke 45 mph only once! All the above makes no general point other than that "the test cycle is everything." And of course the Spark data you provided completely contradicts the data I just typed in above. And of course the test car was optimized for the USA test and not the others (which makes a difference since we know that the rpm/ignition/fuel "map" the ECU uses will of course be different from region to region, even if the engine is mechanically identical.) Beats the crap outta me...
“Sales of Volkswagen vehicles reached 33,414 units in the January-July period, leaping 22% on the year,” in Japan, the Nikkei notes. (Closed market propagandists take note: If you give the Japanese what they want, that allegedly closed market suddenly opens…) Yeah, and the market was up 36%! The best selling import group skyrocketed to almost 1.5% of the market!It isn't closed at all. Empirical evidence shows that ALL imports combined grab almost 6%!