Kei Car

Can we take it home, pleeeeease?

Japan's Transport Ministry claims automaker overstated fuel economy for eight models.

Mitsubishi says its shady fuel-economy test practices may have been used on all vehicles it sells and has sold in Japan.

Mitsubishi admits that it didn't use a portion of Japan's mandated fuel economy test since 1991, which allowed the company to inflate vehicle fuel economy.

Toyota's budget brand Daihatsu is heading to the 2016 Tokyo Auto Salon with concept coupe and shooting brake versions of the little Copen roadster that make us wish we could get one even more.

There's a small part of us that wants Suzuki to come back to America, and bring with it enticing little hatchbacks like the new turbocharged Alto Works you see here.

Suzuki is recalling 2 million cars around the world, but the vast majority of the affected models were sold in Japan, and include a number of popular kei cars, as well as Japanese-built Chevy Cruze sedans.

Honda has revealed the production-spec S660 roadster, a spitting image of the concept revealed 16 months ago, ready to pick up the Beat's mantle and hit showrooms... but sadly only in Japan for the time being.

Suzuki rolls out a new retro kei car with the best fuel economy of any non-hybrid in the Japanese domestic market.

Honda may not compete with the likes of the expanding Fiat 500 and contracting Mini families in the North American or European markets, but back home in Japan it has a whole series of retro hatchbacks, grouped together as part of its N series. And now there is one more.

Last November, the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Mitsubishi announced a partnership to build some tiny electric vehicles for the Japanese market. Well, the partnership is going to build more than that (like the Nissan Dayz, pictured above in Roox form, and the Mit

It was a little bittersweet when the original Daihatsu Copen ended production in 2012. Granted, we never got the tiny roadster in the US, but knowing that it was out there somewhere just made the automotive landscape a little better. It didn't take the Japanese automaker long to see the error of its ways, because concepts for a

Each region around the world has its stereotypical vehicle. The US has the pickup and Europe the five-door hatchback; but in Japan, the kei car reigns supreme. These tiny cars are limited to just 660cc of displacement but they've also come with lower taxes to make them more affordable. To make of the most of their small size, they've often had quite boxy styling like the Honda N-One shown above, and because they're Japanese, t

We get very excited here at Autoblog when someone brings up a rare car from the Japanese domestic market, even if they are distantly related to cars we can buy in the US, like the Toyota Crown Royal Saloon Hybrid our own Sebastian Blanco tested last month. But while we think often about JDM cars, the reality is that the market is far different than

Even average production cars from Japan often seem very conceptual to US eyes. Throw in typical, nonsensical-quasi-English-words name like "Dayz Roox" and you'd be forgiven for thinking this Nissan box on wheels was still a designer's dream. But the fact is that the Nissan Dayz is a model currently on sale, and this Roox version is the latest take on the micro-van, which is a popular segment in Japan.

Apart from a tiny, one-paragraph mention in a press release about the Honda show stand in general, the company hasn't said very much about its completely charming S660 Concept. The model would seem very much to be a look ahead at a possible successor to the Beat kei car for Japanese customers, though we've been told that

The collaboration agreement announced this week by Renault-Nissan Alliance and Mitsubishi will include the co-development of an electric vehicle based on the tiny "kei car" compact platform. Details are vague, but the companies say the car will eventually be s