Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Technology
Hyperdrive

Japan Doesn’t Have Enough Electric Cars for Its EV Chargers

An electric vehicle at a charging station in Yokohama, Japan.

An electric vehicle at a charging station in Yokohama, Japan.

Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg
From

Japan, which Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged will become carbon neutral by 2050, is grappling with a classic ‘build it and they will come’ problem.

After offering subsidies to the tune of 100 billion yen ($911 million) in fiscal 2012 to build charging stations and spur electric-vehicle adoption, charging poles mushroomed.