Tatsuya Arai, a 36-year-old entrepreneur in Tokyo, never saw the appeal of owning a car until he watched a YouTube video featuring a Tesla Inc. The Model 3, with its sleek exterior and innovative dash, looked like a neat solution considering he was moving from the city’s bustling Shibuya district to a quieter waterfront area and needed a way to get around.
"It was like buying a gadget,” he said.
Arai joined a small but growing number of electric vehicle owners in Japan. While EVs account for only 1% of overall car sales, well behind China and parts of Europe, they’re finally starting to catch on. In 2021, new registrations of imported EVs nearly tripled to 8,610, a small but remarkable shift in a country where overall automobile sales have stalled.
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