Kei cars - why not?
Discussion
given the (near) demise of the Jimney and the potential issues for larger 'interesting' cars in the next few years (ie the immediate future) is there any reason why we don't either import (or even start making) kei cars over here?
Strikes me that it'd certainly help London and other large cities not to mention add a splash of interest to the roads....
Strikes me that it'd certainly help London and other large cities not to mention add a splash of interest to the roads....
It's a shame, I still really want a kei truck.
No tax benefit here - without a CO2 rating they pay the rates for older (pre 2001) cars, so £160pa. In Japan they get taxed less to buy in the first place, then a reduced annual tax based on engine size, then a "weight tax" on top of that. Japan also has compulsory insurance that is much cheaper for kei cars.
No equivalent here of the "proof of parking" rules that kei cars are exempt from outside the cities.
EuroNCAP ratings on most of them would be terrible, and despite small engines most are not great on emissions. There's the other problem in Europe of fleet CO2 average, small cheap cars with internal combustion engines are not going to make commercial sense for much longer. It's already killed off the combusion-engined Up/Mii/Citigo and more will probably follow.
They're apparently falling out of favour in Japan, fewer city dwellers are bothering to own a car, the tax breaks are far less generous now, while lots of manufacturers offer them it's mostly badge-engineering of Suzuki and Daihatsu models.
No tax benefit here - without a CO2 rating they pay the rates for older (pre 2001) cars, so £160pa. In Japan they get taxed less to buy in the first place, then a reduced annual tax based on engine size, then a "weight tax" on top of that. Japan also has compulsory insurance that is much cheaper for kei cars.
No equivalent here of the "proof of parking" rules that kei cars are exempt from outside the cities.
EuroNCAP ratings on most of them would be terrible, and despite small engines most are not great on emissions. There's the other problem in Europe of fleet CO2 average, small cheap cars with internal combustion engines are not going to make commercial sense for much longer. It's already killed off the combusion-engined Up/Mii/Citigo and more will probably follow.
They're apparently falling out of favour in Japan, fewer city dwellers are bothering to own a car, the tax breaks are far less generous now, while lots of manufacturers offer them it's mostly badge-engineering of Suzuki and Daihatsu models.
They're great fun, the more interesting ones, but a lot of the more basic ones aren't really anything all that special, and I'm not sure that with an honest evaluation you can say they carry a huge benefit over somethign like an Aygo, a Panda etc.
It's easy for people to say "oh, I wish we had things like the 90s performance ones again", but you have to remember things like a Cappuccino were the equivalent of about £20k now, if you take inflation into account. I'm not sure people would pay that for them, and the people who would pay for them still have the option of a grey import. Someone on here has a current gen Suzuki Alto Works they imported.
It's easy for people to say "oh, I wish we had things like the 90s performance ones again", but you have to remember things like a Cappuccino were the equivalent of about £20k now, if you take inflation into account. I'm not sure people would pay that for them, and the people who would pay for them still have the option of a grey import. Someone on here has a current gen Suzuki Alto Works they imported.
austinsmirk said:
The English nation is far too obese to start squeezing into such cars.
I'm a fat bugger and I fit in them.Alternatively why ?
I wouldn't mind an AZ1 for blatting around the local lanes but I'd still need a larger car too, I bought a Swift Sport for £1k which does the job just as well and can fit 4 men in (when it's my turn to drive to the pub)
I can't see how an engine almost 3x smaller would be a benefit.
I wouldn't mind an AZ1 for blatting around the local lanes but I'd still need a larger car too, I bought a Swift Sport for £1k which does the job just as well and can fit 4 men in (when it's my turn to drive to the pub)
I can't see how an engine almost 3x smaller would be a benefit.
I think it also depends on what you actually want..
Some of the really cool Kei cars are becoming ever more expensive. I really have a hankering for a Mazda Autozam AZ-1.. Last year, you could pick one up for about 7k, or 10k for a Mazdaspeed version.. now the cheapest available for sale in the UK is £13995.. a good Mazdaspeed car is now 16k
So you'd have to really want one.. I do, but just couldn't justify that sort of money on what would be essentially just a toy
Some of the really cool Kei cars are becoming ever more expensive. I really have a hankering for a Mazda Autozam AZ-1.. Last year, you could pick one up for about 7k, or 10k for a Mazdaspeed version.. now the cheapest available for sale in the UK is £13995.. a good Mazdaspeed car is now 16k
So you'd have to really want one.. I do, but just couldn't justify that sort of money on what would be essentially just a toy
Baldchap said:
I still want a Daihatsu Cuore Avanzato TR-XX R4. Can't find nice ones for love nor money because they were cheap new. 
Well, if you specifically want a UK market Cuore one rather than a Mira, yeah, there were only 80 of them in the first place, and they weren't big on rust protection. Plus the gearboxes are known to let go.You can probably get one at a reasonable price if you keep your ear to the ground at the Kei Cars In The Park forum, but the last time they've come up at "sensible" money, someone's bought the car and then relisted at the more consistent £3k mark they seem to turn up at, even though they are always in some way not quite perfect (possibly tending toward rough).
I think looking at importing a good Mira from Japan might be your best option if that's 100% what you want, but also consider other similar kei cars, or indeed non-kei cars. The Panda 100HP has a lot of the same fun factor, but is a more usable and better-supported package in terms of servicing and spares etc.
MKnight702 said:
Given the parking problems when you only have on street parking I suggest that a kei car should be mandatory if you have more than one car per household and don't have sufficient off street parking. Discuss.
I have space for five vehicles and own a Smart Roadster. (Plus a few others)The only way to to force people in the UK to drive different vehicles is taxation. It still allows freedom of choice but it will drive behaviours in purchase. For example, I know I would not choose one of the £500 tax bracket vehicles. It just depends on what is taxed? Physical footprint, number of seats, weight, emissions, age, emissions to manufacture, parking permits based on the former suggestions?
Banning stuff will not be popular/ acceptable.
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