Kei cars make perfect sense in Japan- the density in city areas, the lower speed limits (compared to the US), smaller house driveways which could probably fit t

Kei cars make perfect sense in Japan- the density in city areas, the lower speed limits (compared to the US), smaller house driveways which could probably fit two kei cars but not two "regular" cars. At some point I saw a house (in either Okazaki or Kanazaa, I forget) that had a Ford Excursion in the driveway, and it stuck halfway into the road- that was a very rare sighting. Most people speak pretty positively of their K-car experiences. Instead of trying to pressure people in Japan into buying larger cars, wouldn't it make more sense to try to reduce the preconceptions about them and develop an export market? It sounds like this attempt will only result in more people ditching cars for scooters again, or dropping down to one car when they previously had two. Cars- of any kind- are already rather expensive to own there. They've already had to replace most of their nuclear power with fossil fuel based sources. Pressuring people into buying less efficient cars seems like a giant backward step for a country that's generally considered to be fairly eco-conscious (when you ignore the past destruction of ecosystems for building, and the effects of concreting all the riverbeds). It's much easier to breathe in Tokyo than Beijing, it would be great if it stayed that way! As an aside, I think Japan's regulation on diesel exhaust for large hauler trucks is actually less strict than the US. I was in Okinawa last year, and there was constant traffic from large construction trucks that were always billowing black exhaust that smelled horrific- it seemed much worse than 18 wheelers here. I also noticed it when I tried backpack from Nagoya to Osaka on a rural road in 2010- the truck exhaust seemed to hang in the air longer and felt more choking than modern truck exhaust in the US (familiar with this from doing distance runs on roadsides).