The Japanese Auto Show 2023 Death Has Arrived: The Vision Qe, the Ariya, Prelude, and a New Look at the Prelude
The Vision Qe is a concept car for the first electric vehicle from Infiniti, a super sporty fastback sedan. The luxury brand of Nissan debuted the new concept at Japan’s Mobility Show 2023 this week and promised a production version will follow, well, someday.
None of these came to fruition, and despite Nissan’s great head start on the EV market with the Leaf, it has only added one more EV that’s actively on sale now: the Ariya.
The arrow in the logo no longer intersects to a point. The lines moving toward the logo’s center have been stopped to better represent the infinite road to the horizon.
But there were five new debuts in particular that have taken the world by storm. Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota all revealed show-stopping sports car concepts that feature fully electric or hybrid powertrains, with each brand committing to keeping enthusiast segments alive amid the global EV transition. None of those ideas seem too far-fetched or far away from production, and some are even real surprises which is extremely rare in this day and age.
In recent years, there have been two common feelings among auto enthusiast circles: the auto shows are dying off and the arrival of electric cars will make driving fun more boring.
Dozens of vehicles have debuted at the show, from production kei vans and crossover concepts to eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) prototypes and robotic scooters. I truly can’t remember the last time an auto show had this much new product to talk about, aside from some shows in China that are typically much more focused on the Chinese market.
Japan has long been a stronghold of affordable performance cars and the five different concepts represent exactly the kind of variety enthusiasts dream about. Even if only one or two of these cars had debuted, it would be big news, so getting all of them at once is pretty incredible. Reports of the auto show’s death may have been premature after all.
Hondas reborn Prelude is the most conventional looking of the sports cars shown. It’s a cab-forward, two-door coupe that more closely evokes the discontinued Civic coupe than Preludes of the past. The Prelude features a fresh design language for Honda with an angry face and crisp surfacing, and its raked roofline and stubby proportions either look great or too much like an old Mitsubishi Eclipse, depending on who you ask. Even the lights and bumpers look like they could be put into production, and the concept has real panel gaps and glass surrounds.
In addition to the Prelude, Honda showed off half a dozen electric bikes and scooters, including the incredible Motocompacto that will go on sale in the US later this year. The CI-meV is a microcar for elderly people who can’t walk, drive or take public transportation, and the Sustaina-C concept is a small car made out of recycled plastic. The Uni-One wheelchair-like mobility device can be controlled without using your hands, and Honda has come out with a robot that can remotely do things for you. Oh, and Honda’s eVTOL and HondaJet are on display, too.
After years of concepts and rumors, it seems like Mazda is finally getting close to putting a rotary-powered sports car back into production, this time with an unexpected twist. The new Iconic SP concept uses a rotary engine as a range extender for an electric powertrain, similar to the Chevrolet Volt and BMW i3 REx, and the whole thing seems pretty grounded in reality.
Take a peek at the iconaticsp and you will see it is absolutely stunning. A two-door coupe with swan-wing doors, a fixed roof, and what presumably is a liftback glass hatch, Mazda describes the Iconic SP as a car that “embodies the joy of driving.” It’s perfectly proportioned, with wonderfully sculpted, super wide fenders, an extremely sloping hood and low nose, and minimal surfacing frippery. Mazda’s signature smiling grille is present, but otherwise, there are no large intakes, big exhaust tips, or other typical sports car cues. Pop-up headlights with slim LEDs hide behind a small cover, which is the mark of the Iconic SP.
The IconicSP is more than just a Miata-inspired design, it’s also an RX-7 revival. The current ND MX-5 Miata is 7 inches wider, 4.5 inches shorter, and has a 104-inch wheelbase, which is 11.1 inches longer.
The Mazda says that the two-rotor engine in the center of the car will allow it to be a perfect 50:50 weight distribution and low center of gravity. The weight of the car is 3,197 pounds, which is 850 pounds heavier than a Miata but still less than the majority of existing vehicles. We don’t have a lot of knowledge about the size and placement of the battery or the power of the electric motor,but Mazda says the total output is more than twice what a Miata makes.
The Japanese Hyper Force Concepts and Their Future Production: The Air Mobility Concept and the Powertrains of the Next-Generation WRX STI
The Hyper Force is one of five “Hyper” concepts that Nissan unveiled in Tokyo, with the lineup including a wild Hyper Tourer minivan and a Hyper Punk crossover designed for content creators. In Tokyo, a digital 3D billboard featuring all five concepts is in the Shinjuku district. These concepts might seem completely over the top to you, and they certainly are, but each one packs technology ideas and design themes that will be used in future Nissan production cars. I hope the names stick around, too.
The Hyper Force uses a solid-State battery pack which Nissan has already started working on. The first production EV using Nissan’s new solid-state batteries will go on sale in 2028, with pilot production in Japan in 2019. It’s unknown how many electric motors the Hyper Force uses, but Nissan says it makes a whopping 1,341 horsepower that’s sent to all four wheels via the brand’s e-4ORCE technology.
In traditional Subaru fashion, the Sport Mobility is implied to be all-wheel drive and potentially have rear-wheel steering, but we don’t know any further details. The production car will likely use Toyota’s upcoming solid-state batteries because of the sharing of platforms and powertrains with Subaru. Subaru has said it will launch three new EVs by 2026, but all of them will be SUVs using as-yet-unknown powertrains and platforms. Subaru has also said that it’s working on a fully electric next-generation WRX STI for later this decade, and a coupe could definitely be spun off of that car. A potential BRZ replacement would be at least a few years away anyway, so here’s hoping the Sport Mobility comes to fruition.
The Air Mobility concept is a flying vehicle that has a car-like cabin, six horizontally mounted propellers and a funny set of head- and taillamps. Though it’s just a static model for now, Subaru says it’s actually working on real-life flight demonstrations with aerospace and automotive engineers.
It’s been 16 years since Toyota last offered a mid-engined sports car with the third-gen MR2, and it’s bringing that car’s spirit back with the electric FT-Se concept. Toyota first teased an electric sports car a couple years ago, and the FT-Se’s design is an evolution of what we’ve seen before. Toyota isn’t confirming whether the FT-Se will enter production, but it seems like a sure bet.
The Lexus brand also showed two concepts based on Toyota’s next-gen EV architecture. The LF-ZC previews a production car that will have twice the range of existing EV and theLF-ZL is a luxury SUV that is not currently planned for production. The Lexus Electrified Sport concept, a high-performance EV sports car, was first shown in 2021.
The introduction of electric cars by Japanese manufacturers has been slow in comparison to other countries. So far, only 1.5 percent of new car sales in Japan this year were EVs, compared to around 15 percent in Western Europe and 8 percent in the US.