The Japan Mobility Show 2023, formerly known as the Tokyo Motor Show, has taken the global automotive stage by storm, showcasing the Japanese auto industry's resurgent commitment to electrification and innovative design. As the world steadily transitions towards electric mobility, Japanese automakers are proving that they are not only catching up but are leading the charge in style and substance.
There’s truth in that, although it’s not like the Japanese industry has been pumping out purely internal combustion engines while the rest of the world prepares to go electric. Japan’s development of hybrids is based on not only the belief that they have excellent real-world efficiency and run on electric power for a significant portion of their running but also on Japan’s need to greatly consider whole-life emissions of cars due to having to import almost all of its energy.
The returning Tokyo Motor Show, reborn as the Japan Mobility Show, was the Japanese car industry’s way of showing that it can make electric cars with the best of them. Every major Japanese car maker put electric vehicles at the center of their show stands but thankfully they were not all homogenized family crossover blobs like so many of the first wave of European EVs and they showed real creativity and variety in shape, size, and car type like Japan has always done so well.
Any one of a reborn Mazda MX-5, Nissan GT-R, or Toyota MR2 would have been enough to steal the show at any other major motor show, but that all three were unveiled on the same morning at the same place gave the Japan Mobility Show a real blockbuster feel.
The Mazda Iconic SP concept was a real stunner, elegantly styled and beautifully proportioned. Mazda’s executives said it showed they had all the tools and know-how at their disposal to allow the MX-5 to live on in the electrified era as a rotary range-extended electric model should they wish to do so, and why wouldn’t they?
Be in no doubt either that it previews a new MX-5 rather than an RX sports car: Mazda’s two most senior executives pointedly referenced a future MX-5 in the context of the concept, it was on a show stand celebrating the MX-5 that featured only MX-5s old and new and no other models, Mazda announced a stay of execution for the current MX-5 alongside the new concept to buy more time for the new car’s creation, and even for a concept it has the cut lines ready to be made into a convertible. The rotary powertrain is a coincidental link to the RX, a car Mazda has already tried to revive in recent years with the RX Vision concept, a very different proposal to the small, lithe Iconic SP.
The future GT-R, previewed by the Nissan Hyper Force, lacked any of the grace of the Mazda, but then when was it ever subtle? If its design wasn’t shocking enough, its 1300bhp-plus power output was. It was one of five Nissan ‘Hyper’ concepts at the show as Nissan revealed a family of next-generation EVs, the most relevant of which was a small SUV called Hyper Punk that offered a look at the next Nissan Juke.
Toyota was less forthcoming with information on the FT-Se concept car, although it almost didn’t need to, such was the obvious look at a future ‘mid-engined’ electric car inspired by the MR2 that you could fill in many of the blanks yourself. It looked so well finished and resolved that it could head straight into production. If the bZ4X had us worried about how the ‘old’ Toyota might return to making uninspiring cars by the numbers in the electric era, the FT-Se suggested otherwise.
The FT-Se didn’t look to have too much in common with a brace of new Lexus models, the LF-ZC saloon and LF-ZL large crossover, but underneath they shared a new common architecture that revolutionizes the manufacturing process and will allow such wildly different models to be spun off the same underpinnings. The LF-ZC in particular showed a rarely seen elegance to a Lexus model that bodes well for its own electric future.
If three new Japanese sports cars weren’t enough, then a famous old sports coupé was revived, too. The Honda Prelude made a comeback at the show, a little anonymous-looking but smart enough. It certainly looked more resolved than the Subaru Sport Mobility Concept, a raised sports coupé that appeared a little phoned in. Look up to the roof of the Subaru stand, and you’ll have seen the firm's real talking point: a flying car concept. Yes, one of those.
While the electric cars on Mercedes' small stand looked a bit old hat compared with their Japanese counterparts, the show also hosted international automakers like BMW, Renault, and BYD, the rapidly growing Chinese car maker with its eyes clearly on another major international market it can disrupt.
As for the show itself, it was in the same venue as the old Tokyo Motor Show but did have a subtly different feel and was the first show with the word ‘mobility’ in its title that actually felt like a welcoming, interesting, and accessible mobility show highlighting wildly different vehicle types rather than a glorified trade show with stands populated by people who like to stand behind roped-off areas and have a fishbowl for business cards and mints with their company name stamped onto them.
In the show’s east halls were the car makers and in the west were the mobility providers, but here they were packed with all kinds of concepts, including upright mobility scooters, assistance robots, shops on wheels, rescue vehicles, toilets on wheels, and even lunar exploration devices. You could easily spend a couple of hours here.
After the world’s automotive media moves on elsewhere, it’s time for the paying public. At its historic peak, the Tokyo Motor Show attracted 2.6 million visitors, and its lowest was 600,000. At its last running, in 2019, it was 1.3 million. Toyota’s Jun Nagata is on the organizing committee and he hoped to attract 300 companies to display at the show but ended up with close to 500.
Off the back of the strength of new cars and exhibitors, not only does Nagata hope to beat that 2019 attendance figure for 2023 but he also wants the show to become an annual fixture. Those turning up for this year will experience the best motor show anywhere in the world since COVID-19.