Yeah, Japan isn't a good example of the way the international market is going. Japan has always been energy-poor, lacking in oil and coal, and since the Fukushima disaster they've permanently shut down nearly all their nuclear power plants, producing a chronic electricity shortage.
Japan has in the past shown the ability to do long-range planning to manage their resources, but here they've really fallen on their faces. Japan should be both working hard on developing a new generation of nuclear power plants, ones which -- like NuScale's small modular reactors -- are truly fail-safe, which current reactors aren't; and at the same time, they should be in the midst of a massive build-out of solar farms in the uninhabited, mountainous regions of their islands and also building massive offshore wind farms.
Sadly, none of that is taking place at all. Instead, Japan is foolishly providing massive subsidies to fool cell cars, which are a dead-end technology.
If you want to see where first-world countries in general are going, look at Europe. The USA took an early lead in the EV revolution, but under the current backward presidential administration it's lagging behind. That won't last long, fortunately, and soon we'll be competing with Europe to accelerate into the 21st century, with gasmobiles rapidly becoming obsolete, and every auto maker competing to produce as many compelling, long-range BEVs as possible.
Those auto makers which don't, those like Honda, won't survive the EV revolution. Just as with every disruptive tech revolution, the market leaders at the end will show some new faces and will be missing some old ones.
