The Japanese government's original deadline was March 2010. After Sunday's election in Japan, the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party has dramatically lost in front of the Democratic Party. Now, as the new cabinet is expected to take shape during the middle of September, Toyota tries to push for their plan.
Japan's car sales saw an abrupt decline from the beginning of the year and the drastic fell was stopped only by tax cuts along with government financial aid. With Toyota's new Prius just launched, the car maker is naturally interested in obtaining an extension to the subsidies for new environmentally friendly cars until March 2012.
The inside source was actually a Toyota executive that spoke with Reuters: the source says Toyota fears the newly elected party would sack tax cuts on new vehicles instead of dropping additional taxes on petrol.
Another interesting factor is that the newly elected party promised to scrappe all highway tolls. While this may be a hit from a political image point of view, the aforementioned Toyota executive said he is "cautious and uncertain about the feasibility of such a generous step, because of the challenges the government faces over fiscal revenues", reported just-auto.com
With more bold economic propositions like this, many analysts wonder where the cabinet will gather the funds from.
Google News