(Yicai) Oct. 31 -- Battery-powered electric vehicles take center stage in Japanese car manufacturers’ booths at the Japan Mobility Show this year, but the majority are prototypes, indicating that Japan’s EV campaign is still another two to three years away, an industry insider said.

Toyota Motor’s booth at the auto show, which has reopened after a four-year hiatus, is packed with prototypes of pure electric sports cars, pure electric sport utility vehicles and pure electric pickup trucks. Honda Motors also has a number of battery EVs on display, whereas in 2019 it was more focused on hybrid EVs.

But neither company has made much progress since the expo in 2017 when they both unveiled battery EV concept vehicles as well as all-solid-state batteries and artificial intelligence-based smart cockpit technology.

“Do you get the feeling that we are back at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition in 2019?” said Wang Qiang, a senior technical supervisor from a Chinese automaker. In 2019, China’s conventional vehicle manufacturers also organized their displays around concept battery electric cars but did not say when they would be mass produced, he added.

Japan’s auto giants say that they want to embrace EVs but they are cautious and slow to act, Wang said.

Electric cars are not very popular in Japan due to the narrow roads and limited parking space, a Japanese auto dealer said. EVs raise the cost of land use and the infrastructure needed is hard to build.

Japanese automakers have to take into consideration the demand in different markets as well as the available supply chains in different countries in order to decide on which business development direction they wish to take and when to move in this direction, an analyst at a Japanese automobile research institute told Yicai.

Toyota will focus more on battery-powered EVs due to the surging demand in China and other countries, but this does not mean it will give up hybrid EVs and hydrogen-powered vehicles, the Aichi-based company said.

Nissan Motor’s solid state batteries, which are scheduled to reach the market in 2028, can be charged 80 percent full in under four minutes, faster than lithium batteries, and have a density of 1,000 watt-hours per liter, the Yokohama-based carmaker said.

“If solid state batteries can be mass produced in 2028 as planned, Japanese automakers will get a second chance,” Wang said.

The Tokyo Motor Show was renamed the Japan Mobility Show this year. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault and BYD were the only foreign carmakers to attend.

Editor: Kim Taylor