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Toyota Aqua and Prius Back to Being the Most Popular Cars in Japan

The Japanese car market, one of the biggest in the world, is undergoing a major change. The local government has de-prioritized kei cars in the hope of making the local industry more competitive. Even though customers are likely to shy away from these tiny cars powered by 660cc motors now, they still prefer smaller vehicles.
Toyota Aqau G's 1 photo
Photo: Toyota
Sales figures for the month of July (2014) were released last week by Japanese market watchdogs and they show a change at the top of the leader board. The best sold car was the Toyota Aqua, with 23,900 deliveries, more than 6,000 better than the runner up, which was the Prius.

Ironically, the comparison would have been impossible in America, where the Aqua is actually sold as a member of the Prius family. Even so, this hybrid subcompact that's based on the Yaris managed to overtake the Honda Fit, a much newer model. Since its launch last November, the Fit held the #1 position for a number of months. But in July, the Fit only managed 16,636 deliveries in its domestic market, probably due to the gearbox recall it's been subjected to. Unlike the Fit, however, the Aqua is only available with one engine and gearbox: 1.5-liter + electric motor producing 100 PS and coupled to a CVT.

However, in herms of outright sales, Toyota has always been the clear market leader in Japan, with 6 models in the top 10 leader: Aqua, Pris, Voxy, Vitz, Corolla and Noah.

As for the kei car market, the Daihatsu Tanto was the best selling mini with 17,055 units, representing a 150% increase over last year and the second market victory for theToyota Group. It was followed by Nissan's popular Dayz, the Honda N-BOX and Suzuki Hustler, each with about 14,000 sales.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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