Country at the Desigr rossroads
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ADVENT OF MOTORWAYS WILL BRING NEW MODELS
BY ALAN HAVARD, M inst T I N some respects Japan is in the general vicinity of pretty
important crossroads, so far as commercial vehicle design is concerned. Town streets are narrow and congested (no pavements—so pedestrians, cyclists, buses, trucks and cars all mill around in the same space). The vast majority of roads are unpaved and narrow with many winding, mountainous gradients. These two factors have, as I said last week, largely shaped the apparent—but not actual—eccentricities and shortcomings (in relation to European vehicles of comparable capacity) of Japanese vehicles.
New genus needed 1 But a new genus is now called for, as motorways begin to ',make their impact felt, and operators find that—almost for the first time—they can run at continuous high speeds. The advent of motorways also brings road into competition with the highly efficient State railways, which is another novel experience for Japanese operators of both trucks and buses.
The Japanese have two commercial vehicle classifications that are peculiar to their country—" midget" and "compact ". Above these are "light duty ", "medium duty" (subdivided into light and heavy categories) and "heavy duty ". The following table explains the categories, which are also used for tax purposes:—
Because it is a useful compromise, the "light duty" category is expanding in popularity; it falls rather neatly between the limitations of "compact" vehicles and the unwanted size of " medium " ones, so far as urban delivery work is concerned. It is, indeed, in this category that several of the new forwardcontrol designs, often with tilt cabs, are appearing. Similarly, demand is beginning to swing away from " medium duty (light)" towards the "medium duty (heavy)" vehicles. In this instance the demand is for higher payloads within the same design framework. In this top-weight category, too, can he found the newer, forward-control designs.
Diesels widely used The use of diesel engines is pretty well universal. Well over 80 per cent of the 5/6-ton vehicles have this type of engine, and they carry the biggest share of the road freight for any vehicle category.
As yet, trailer and semi-trailer production in Japan is almost non-existent. A certain number of 4and 5-ton capacity artics
an be seen on local collection-and-delivery work. hauled by tither three-wheeled or small, four-wheeled tractive units. rhere are also low-loader machinery carriers and abnormal load Units; but these comprise, naturally, a specialist market Ind do not rise or fall with changing demand. The truth is that, as yet, there has been no need for articulation. With a ZO-ton-gross vehicle weight limit and no great amount of longJistance haulage (because of the poor condition of trunk roads). there is no real need for them. At the moment articulated vehicles are restricted to 15 tons payload, and rigids and trailers to 8 + 7 tons (all within the 20-ton gross limit).
Position Will Change
There is very little doubt at all that this position will change; mit I do not think one will see very soon the big artics that the Western countries now use in such proliferation. Truck )perators are certainly thinking about semi-trailers for longlistance work, and American trailer manufacturers are beginning to look earnestly at Japan. However, by 1970 the countrY will still only have one true motorway (when the Tokyo/Nagoya section is joined to the Nagoya/Osaka motorway which opened last year), so there is no reason to foresee a rapidly changing market.
Anyway, all I've written so far in this series has concerned Japan today. What about Japan in, say, five years' time? I hardly think I can answer the question better than by delving into a massive "sales forecast" document produced earlier this year by Toyota. To say the least is to say, it is optimistic that the current production boom will continue,
Toyota forecasts that by 1969 the country will have climbed into second or third place in the world's total registrations ranking. They also expect Japan to be producing more vehicles (cars and commercials) than any European country by 1969, when the Japanese expect an annual new-registration of 2,300,000 vehicles of all kinds. The United Kingdom figure last year was some 1,497,000.
Vehicle population
At the moment Japan's vehicle population is identical with that in Great Britain in 1954; it was 5.700,000 last year (compared with 10,534.000 in the UK). Be 1969 it is expected tc be .12,500,000 vehicles. In four years' time the ratio of trucks and buses to cars produced. each year should drop from the present 70/30 ratio to 55 per cent commercial vehicles and 45 per cent cars.
Sales of trucks and buses at home are expected to rise 37 per cent to a 1969 total of 1,265,000. Th.e average annual growth in Japanese truck and bus registrations was a spectacular 27 per cent between 1957 and 1961. This, Toyota estimates, wi reduce to 5J,per cent hy 1969. In other words, the Japanese home market has created a tremendous explosion in demand. currently quite unequalled anywhere else in the world, which should soon begin settling down more towards the annual growth rates in more highly developed countries.
Much of the survey relates, naturally enough, to Toyota own range of vehicles and I will refer to these matters wher discussing the company in a later article, because it is not relevant to my present discussion of national trends. However, the survey does make one general observation. Toyota envisages the " midget " size of vehicles being gradually squeezed out, and a slowing in the present upsurge in demand for big vehicles. They pin their faith on the " compact '' and." light' categories. I. personally, am not sure that I agree with them about diminishing demand for bigger vehicles—it was not the impression 1 got from other makers --but pitting my three weeks' experience against their lifetime is perhaps presumptious of me!