Daihatsu & Nissan Top Selling Models (in Japan) : 2020

The Daihatsu Move Canbus

                                                                                                                               This is a series looking at all Japanese branded models that exceed 7,000 sales considered brand by brand and this is #3. There are many strong selling domestic models in Japan, as we shall see. 

The top selling list is dominated by the diminutive Kei car class. Kei cars account for over a third of all sales, are exclusively local and there aren't that many of them in terms of choice. That is why they are the biggest selling models. 

I'm a fan of Daihatsu cars. Practical and reliable as you can get. The Tanto is the best selling model and with 88% of sales Kei cars, obviously this is of that type. The boxy hatchback style is immensely popular in Japan. The Mira e:S is also a hatch but squat in comparison. The Move Canbus minivan is well, novel.  The Move is somewhere in between the two previous models. The Taft crossover is another boxy Kei offering.

One may have thought Nissan would do better in its home market but no model reaches 100,000 sales. The Dayz Hatchback tops the list ahead of the new mini MPV Rooz (formerly the Dayz Rooz, see below), the latter is the current Kei car of the year. 

With 'just' 43% of sales in the Kei category, regular cars have to take on dominant Toyota. The Note hatchback does quite well but the 72,000 sales are down on the nearly 140,000 a few years ago. The medium sized Serena MPV is a successful model, the model line started life back in 1991. Electric Leaf sales are down on where they have been recently.