BATTERIES INCLUDED

    Japanese car manufacturers have always invested heavily in research and development and were actually infatuated with energy efficiency long before global warming was accepted as a worldwide reality. For decades Japanese companies have struggled to cope with their oil-poor country's sky-high energy costs by placing a premium on energy-saving technologies and, coupled with the western world's decree to break the shackles of its middle-eastern oil addiction and turn instead to sustainable domestic forms of 'new energy', the Japanese penchant for frugality and innovation could just pay off. Big time.

Visitors look at the Lexus LF-CH hybrid concept car at the 41st Tokyo Motor Show in Chiba, east of Tokyo October 21, 2009.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Tomomitsu Uemoto, a spokesperson for Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, certainly seems to thinks so. He believes that automakers in Japan may not just be paving the way for a cleaner, greener future, but that their next generation of hybrid cars could indeed lead the country out of its economic anxiety, as he explains.

    "The Japanese economy relies heavily on developing and exporting electronic goods and cars. In Japan at the moment people aren't buying new cars because of the exchange rate and the global economic turndown. Production and export of Japanese cars are at an all time low. Most Japanese car manufacturers have been forced to shut down some of their assembly lines in their factories and restructure their workforces. The situation facing manufacturers in America is even more serious. However, although the short-term view for Japanese automakers, particularly for this fiscal year, is a little depressing, the market will recover and when it does international and domestic consumers will be more concerned with economy and environment than with status and power -- when this happens Japanese car manufacturers are perfectly placed with the history, technology and manufacturing infrastructure to capitalize and reverse the effects of the Japanese recession."

    Perhaps though the biggest signs that Japan, as a nation, is one-step ahead of its counterparts in accepting the fact that cleaner, greener cars will become a worldwide norm is firstly the way in which Japanese automakers have aligned themselves with electrical companies, specifically those that make batteries and also the way society in general readily and rapidly embraces and adopts technical innovation and paradigm shifts into everyday life.

    The key to Japanese automakers protecting their edge when it comes to green car projects, in light of the fact that hybrid technology is old news, is joining forces with makers of electronics and batteries. Toyota's joint venture with Panasonic has already made it one of the world's leading battery companies. Similarly, Nissan recently increased its stake in its own battery collaboration with NEC, investing in a new, gargantuan factory with the express aim of marketing its lithium-ion batteries to other carmakers. The future for cars, it would appear, is a battery operated one.