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The 2023 Tokyo Motor Show officially opened on October 25, the first time it has been reopened after a four-year absence. It is worth mentioning that the 46th Tokyo Motor Show has been officially renamed "2023 Japan Mobile Travel Show", which focuses more on future smart travel, including electrification and intelligence, and is not limited to the automobile field.

According to relevant data, the Tokyo Motor Show, which began in 1954, is the largest international auto show in Asia and is known as the "weather vane of Asian cars". In 1954, the original exhibition was called "all-Japan Auto Show" (all-Japanese automatic cars). Since 1964, the name of the exhibition has been changed to "Tokyo Motor Show". In 2021, due to the global epidemic, the 47th Tokyo Motor Show, originally scheduled for autumn, was suspended for the first time since 1954. In November 2022, the Japan Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced that the Tokyo Motor Show, scheduled for the autumn of 2023, would be renamed "Japan Mobile Show", attracting companies from other fields as well as regular car companies.

Although Japanese cars are particularly slow in the transformation of electrification, it is not difficult to see from this auto show that electrification has become the focus of the future development of Japanese auto companies.

At the press conference, the Honda classic sports car Prelude was resurrected. The Prelude, a classic two-door sports car launched by Honda in the 1980s, will be revived as an electric car. In terms of appearance, the front face will adopt a new design style, the central LED light belt shows the electric style, and the bottom is equipped with a mesh intake grille and spoiler to show a sense of movement. From the side, the new car is still designed with two doors and hidden door handles, the exterior rearview mirror, roof and rims are blackened, and the front wheels are equipped with blue calipers to show a sense of performance.

Infiniti brand pure electric model-Vision Qe concept car world debut, this car is the first electric model launched by Infiniti brand. At the scene, Infiniti announced new product plans for the future, including a new generation of Infiniti QX80, Infiniti QX65, Infiniti Vision QXe and so on.

Toyota, the leader of the Japanese market, also showed a number of concept cars at the auto show, such as the Landcool Luze Se concept car, which looks angular, but does not have a huge net, and the lights look slender and futuristic. As a luxury brand, Lexus unveiled the Lexus LF-ZC concept car and the Lexus LF-ZL concept car, which will be mass-produced in 2026 and Lexus will be transformed into a pure electric brand in 2035.

In addition, Japanese manufacturers including Mitsubishi and Suzuki also unveiled new electric models.

Compared with Japanese car companies, BYD from China has become the highlight of this auto show, which is also the first Chinese car company to participate in the Tokyo auto show. At the 2023 Tokyo Motor Show, BYD Motor's BYD, Teng Teng and Wang Wang brands all participated in the show, bringing a total of 5 new energy models, including Yuan PLUS, Dolphin, Seal, Teng Teng D9 and U8. From the on-site pictures released by major Weibo bloggers, we can see that BYD's booth is packed with spectators, and the aisles are full of people, making it the well-deserved "top of the car circle" of this auto show.

In January this year, BYD passenger cars officially entered the Japanese market, with the first three models on sale, namely, Yuan PLUS, Dolphin and Seal, with Yuan plus being the first to sell. However, at present, BYD's sense of presence in the Japanese market is not strong and can not be accepted by local consumers. According to the Japan Federation of Automobile sales Associations, BYD's passenger car sales in Japan in the first quarter of 2023 were 20, 37 and 151 respectively, although sales rose month by month and surpassed Hyundai, which is also imported. But there is still a huge gap compared with Japanese local companies.

Japan is an island country with a well-developed automobile industry, but local brands such as Toyota, Honda, Mazda and Nissan occupy 90% of the Japanese market. Whether German or American, it is difficult to find a development direction in this market. BYD, as a Chinese brand, began to re-examine the Japanese market and try.

Of course, there must be opportunities due to risks. Japan's low market share of electric vehicles also shows that there is huge growth potential in its market. After all, local car companies such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan have also begun to accelerate the development of electric vehicles. In the future, the opportunities in this market must outweigh the risks. Anyway, the market is blank. How to highlight the advantages of domestic electric vehicles in the context of new energy is also a major task for BYD.

Compared with other car brands, BYD's advantage is still relatively obvious. First of all, in terms of brand awareness, as BYD Japan President Liu Xueliang said, BYD has been engaged in IT-related battery business in Japan for 23 years, and has also provided electric buses to Fukushima Prefecture, Capital Prefecture and Okinawa Prefecture. BYD electric buses have accumulated some popularity in the dark. At the same time, as the new energy vehicle brand with the first sales in the world and the third car company by market capitalization in the world, BYD's position in the global new energy vehicle market also provides some added value for the development of new energy vehicle market in Japan. In addition, even Toyota, the world's largest seller, also cooperates with BYD on electric vehicles.

Of course, it is not that Japanese consumers do not like BYD, but that they do not like new energy vehicles, including Toyota and Nissan's electric vehicles are in the doldrums in Japan. One of the reasons why consumers are reluctant to buy new energy vehicles is that there are too few charging piles in Japan, which is inconvenient to charge, which is also a major problem for BYD to promote pure electric vehicles in Japan.

According to the plan, BYD plans to open 100 stores in Japan by 2025 to meet local demand for new energy vehicles, while Japanese carmakers are speeding up the deployment of new energy, which may attract more consumers to consider buying electric cars in the future.

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