Six months ago, my wife and I moved to my wife's home country, Japan, a nation where electrification of passenger/work transportation is very advanced.
We live in the heart of an 800,000 population city in an elevator-equipped — and earthquake-proofed — apartment building only a quarter mile from the city's busy train station.
Surprisingly, the clickety-clack of the inter-metro trains rolling down the tracks no longer bothers us. In fact, it kind of lulls you to sleep — as it does for the tens of thousands of commuters here who ride the trains (and sleep in their seats). Of course, the bullet trains are very quiet by comparison as they whoosh by in a few seconds.
And Japan is a place where you can get by without a car. The inner cities are safe and there are plenty of public bus and train options. So the only vehicle we now have — and it's essential — is a human-powered shopping trolley that we fold and carry to the local grocers, farmer's market, and department stores.
But life in Japan is not all city: the high rises and multi-story apartment buildings extend to only a 3-mile radius from the city center. Beyond that, the landscape is dominated by single-family homes, two-story apartments — and cars — tons of cars, like American suburbia. But the Japanese suburbs have only tiny yards, their floor space is maybe two-thirds the size, so the homes are more tightly packed.
In fact, the sale of hybrid cars is booming -- no surprise in a country that has no internal supply of petroleum and recently found the need to buy oil from the Russians.
We are getting rides from friends in these cars, and I'm sure FReepers would get a kick out of them. The market is completely different: the designs are quite boxy relatively few SUVs and pickup trucks are sold, but passenger hybrids are comfortable, have lots of head room, and are loaded with electronic. Japan is way past the PRIUS novelty phase. Curiously, I have not seen any Teslas or ads/publicity about them here. So that's a quick update.
Are the hybrids plug-in hybrids? As you say, Japan has no domestic source for petroleum. Thus one would think they'd opt for cars in which some of the miles are all-electric.
How do they generate their power? I don't care much for the left's push for solar and wind because I don't believe we're destroying the world and such. However, I can see Japan welcoming whatever ways they can generate power without depending on imports. If they have a lot of coal deposits that would be attractive IMHO.