Japan is an extremely difficult market to penetrate. It’s technically an open market with no import tax on foreign cars.

Yes, there are tax-deducted vehicle categories like kei minicars, which dominate more than 60 percent of Japan’s new car market and is so competitive that no foreign car company bothers since there is no demand for such products elsewhere. But the point is that, as far as taxes are concerned, Japan makes no distinction between domestic cars and imports.

Lack of dedicated residential parking space and heavy reliance on mechanized parking structures like car lifts and turntables that stack parked cars on top of one another also means that overnight EV charging is not possible for many drivers.

Yes, there are solutions where chargers are integrated into the lifts, but it's very expensive because unlike regular parking bays, these lift bays are always moving - either vertically, horizontally, or both - so it's either you install the chargers on every bay or you don't install it at all. For a shared, residents-funded facility, you can quickly see why this is a dead-end.

This is the main reason why even though Japan is a battery EV pioneer with the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, vehicles that require plug-in overnight charging haven’t really caught on, especially in urban areas where landed properties and reserved private parking are for the wealthy.

Which is why BYD’s approach to penetrate Japan did not start with passenger cars, but electric buses.

BYD’s first vehicle in Japan is not the Atto 3, but an intra-city bus for the city of Kyoto in 2015, because that’s where heads of states signed the Kyoto Protocol treaty, the first major effort by governments around the world to tackle climate change.

In 2021, it sold a fleet of BYD M3e minivan to taxi operators, also in Kyoto.

Having established a good reputation for reliability – an extremely important purchase reason for Japanse buyers - with its high mileage EV buses and taxis, BYD turned its attention to private car buyers.

BYD only started selling passenger cars in January this year, with the Atto 3. The Dolphin and the Seal will follow later this year.

The market is still small, as challenges with charging an EV in car park mentioned earlier will not go away. For a small group of Japanese who can embrace the EV lifestyle however, BYD is fast becoming the preferred choice.

Within just 3 months, BYD had overtaken Hyundai to become the most popular battery EV-only brand. Hyundai in Japan sells only the battery EV Ioniq 5 and the hydrogen fuel-cell electric Nexo. Tesla doesn’t reveal its sales data but being a high-end private car-only battery EV brand, it can’t be selling more than BYD.

As of March 2023, BYD has delivered 252 vehicles, out of which 208 are passenger cars, the majority of it the Atto 3. Meanwhile, Hyundai delivered 162 zero emission vehicles in that same period.

Also read: Reverse colonization – Hyundai re-enters Japan with Ioniq 5 BEV and Nexo FCEV

Of course, the BYD Atto 3 is also a lot cheaper than the Hyundai Ioniq 5. The BYD SUV starts from 4.4 million Yen while the Hyundai SUV starts from 5.2 million Yen.

March was BYD Japan’s best-ever month ever since sales of the Atto 3 started (in January 2023). The company sold 159 cars, up from the previous month’s 56 units.

In comparison, Hyundai sold 70 units and 60 units in February and March 2023 respectively.

Closer to home, BYD has just delivered its 1,000th BYD Atto 3 in Malaysia, four months after its launch in December 2022.

Prices for the imported (CBU, China) BYD Atto 3 are as below:

BYD Atto 3 Standard Range: RM 149,800 – 49.92 kWh, 410 km (NEDC)

BYD Atto 3 Extended Range: RM 167,800 – 60.48 kWh, 480 km (NEDC)

Also read: Review: BYD Atto 3 - Not without its pains, but it's probably the most complete EV SUV for RM 170k