Could a Japan-style mini EV kei category really work in Europe?

The city car segment has been shrinking for years as manufacturers have struggled to make decent profits from vehicles that are regulated just the same as a Range Rover or BMW 7 Series. 

The problem has been compounded by the move to electrification because the cost of the battery is even harder to mask in something sub-4.0m long. You could reduce the size of the battery, but buyers might not accept the paucity of range. 

Look what happened to the Honda E city car – pulled from Europe after just three years on sale because not enough people were happy to pay £37,395 for a car with a range of just 130 miles.

However, European car makers think they’ve hit on the solution: introduce a new electric category similar to Japan’s diminutive kei class that restricts aspects such as size, weight and power but unlocks certain benefits not available to larger cars.

The car makers, through their lobby group ACEA, presented the idea in late November as a way to expand the currently narrowing options for urban drivers.

“We think we can propose something that addresses the usage without the cost of a car that has to do everything,” Luca de Meo, Renault Group CEO and ACEA president, told journalists. “The kei car is a perfect example of the kind of things we should be able to do.”

“A- and B-segment cars are not profitable any more because auto makers have to produce cars dressed up like Christmas trees,” de Meo said. “It doesn’t make a difference if it’s a Clio or a big limo.”

Small electric cars in this proposed new category should have a reduced purchase tax, lower road tolls, easier access to city centres and not be subject to the same parking restrictions as regular cars, de Meo said.

Urban car buyers are being squeezed right now in their car choices. On the one hand, new cars, particularly electric cars, are expensive. On the other, the cheapest used combustion-engine cars are being targeted by cities for their poorer emissions.

Meanwhile, there’s another movement afoot to restrict larger cars. In Paris, for example, residents are being asked to vote on whether to triple parking charges for heavy SUVs to €18 (£15) an hour.

This is where kei cars look so appealing. Kei (short for keijidosha, or ‘light automobile’) is a class of car in Japan restricted to dimensions 3.4m long, 1.48m wide and 2m tall with a 660cc maximum engine displacement. Power is generally limited to 64bhp after manufacturers mutually agreed to avoid a horsepower war.

Kei emerged because Japan is mostly squeezed into high-density coastal cities lacking space. To own a car, you need to provide proof you’ve got somewhere off-street to park it, but kei cars are generally exempted from this.

So what would a European kei car look like? We pushed for clarification from ACEA but it didn’t get back to us. We can guess, however. 

Car makers have been forced over the years to build cars to ever tighter safety legislation. The most recent GSR2 regulations require, for example, cameras to identify road signs to inform the required intelligent speed assistance (ISA) as well as the emergency lane keeping system (ELKS).

A kei category might be more relaxed on the level of safety, but that wouldn’t sit well with safety organisations, such as crash test pioneers Euro NCAP. “Euro NCAP is not against the introduction of smaller EVs, but not at the cost of safety,” technical director Richard Schram told Autocar. “The European type approval must ensure that the base safety performance is sufficient for this possible new category of cars.”

Euro NCAP said these cars would be tested just like any other but pointed out that kei cars actually perform decently in JNCAP, Japan’s equivalent safety tests, which added kei cars in 1999. 

Last year, for example, the Nissan Sakura electric kei car achieved five stars on the test, helped by its seven airbags. These aren’t dangerous vehicles. The Sakura is as good a template as any for a European version: it measures 3.4m long, seats four, hits 80mph, has a claimed 112-mile range from its 20kWh battery and costs from the equivalent of £12,700 in Japan.

This is a proper car, unlike Europe’s less sturdy equivalent: the quadricycle. Like the kei, quadricycles have legislated restrictions: on speed, power and weight. ‘Light’ quadricycles such as the electric Citroën Ami are limited to 28mph and can’t weigh more than 425kg unladen, while ‘heavy’ quadricycles can go to 450kg and reach speeds of 56mph.

The lower speeds and lighter weight permits less rigorous demands on safety. Quadricycles as a result are not beloved of safety organisations. Euro NCAP has tested a few from the likes of French quadricycle maker Aixam and generated some grisly videos of the cars failing to protect occupants. No quadricycle maker now submits cars, not even Citroën with its £7695 Ami.

However, the basic selling point of quadricycles is that driving in a box, however lightweight its construction, is far safer than riding a moped that it more closely competes with on price.

Citroën owner Stellantis might no longer be a member of ACEA, but boss Carlos Tavares was very supportive of a new restrictive category. “We are very comfortable with that thinking because we are already selling the Citroën Ami, the Opel Rocks E and now the Fiat Topolino [both related models],” he told Autocar. “So to a certain extent, ACEA is validating what we have already done.”

However, Tavares did point out one, potentially major flaw with the kei car idea. “I think it’s a good idea for urban use. But you will have to check with the mayors of the European cities that they agree with that,” he said.

The problem, as Tavares hinted at, will come with not the designing or production of the cars, but gaining the acceptance of all the various legislative bodies that oversee countries, cities and towns across Europe that this new class of car is indeed worthy of special treatment. Will they see the benefits of incentivising small EVs outweighing the disadvantages? 

For example, the potential loss of tax revenue if you lower rates, or the morphing of traffic jams into ones now created by an abundance of tiny EVs. Given small cars are already popular in Europe’s cities, will parking really be relieved?

The advantages to the car companies are easy to see. Unlike with quadricycles, the sale of a small kei EV would be logged against the car maker’s average CO2. Because small cheap EVs are an easier sale than large, more expensive EVs, the transition period before hitting zero carbon tailpipe emissions in 2035 will be a lot easier.

The smaller batteries, meanwhile, will reduce the need to secure vast great reserves of raw materials and, of course, they’ll be a lot better on overall production emissions than an EV with double the battery size. 

Car makers are also frustrated with car buyers’ requirements for extensive electric range when their data shows they don’t really need it, especially for smaller cars. For example, de Meo quoted the average journey profile of the Dacia Spring small EV as being 19 miles a day at an average of 16mph. “So you don’t need a 100kWh battery, which is an ecological disaster anyway”, he said.

If buyers gained other benefits such as cheaper tax, city access or more parking choice, they could be persuaded to look past the perceived problems of a 100-mile range.

The Chinese car companies, meanwhile, have shown that if you choose your parts carefully, you don’t even need to restrict technology on a small cheap EV. China has managed to create a thriving market for cheap electric cars for the benefit of both buyers and emissions reduction. With the right buy-in from countries and cities, Europe could do the same thing.