From Automobile to Mobility Industry: Is the Industrial Transformation underway in Japan?

Résumé:

The paper and presentation follow up on my research presented at the GERPISA colloquiums in recent years, particular the one in 2025 in Shanghai.
Since 2015, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) is actively leading the industry towards sustainable development and advocating for new business models. This change is described by the motto “from automobile to mobility industry”.
Very briefly the development over the last decade:
In 2015, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) presented its first mobility study titled “Automated Driving Vision”, which provided the basis for JAMA’s short-term “Mobility Vision 2030”, which was published in 2018. In the same year, industry leader Toyota announced that it will change the company’s business model from being an automobile producer to becoming a provider of future mobility solutions. Reacting towards the announcement of Japan’s government in October 2020 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, JAMA reviewed its approach to future mobility concepts entirely and presented its long term “Mobility Vision 2050”.
In October 2023, the head organization of Japanese Employers, Keidanren, set up a “Mobility Commission” led by Tokura Masakazu, chairman of Keidanren, Arima Kōji, CEO of Denso Corp., and Toyoda Akio, former CEO of Toyota and former head of JAMA. In November 2023 the commission presented its report titled: “Mobility Industry – Future Perspectives and Tasks”. Reacting particular to declining market shares of Japanese manufacturers in South-East Asia (ASEAN) and in the market for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) the report demands a new automobile policy focusing on three main aspects: The first is ‘ increasing national investments in response to the global competition for investment’, the second is ‘strengthening international competitiveness’, and the third is ‘developing the automobile industry into a mobility industry’.
Based on the Keidanren commission report, in January 2025, JAMA presented a complete new “Vision 2035”, which provided a detailed concept of an industrial policy in order to achieve the long-term mobility “revolution” “Mobility Vision 2050”. The decisive point of this study was, that it was not just a proposal, but a policy coordinated with a wide range of automobile and not-automobile related actors and above all supported by the Japanese government.
My paper and presentation for the GERPISA colloquium 2026 will examine how the “Vision 2035” has been implemented and how the actions are coordinated between the automobile industry and the non-automobile related industries, and how the government is politically supporting the shift from the automobile to a mobility industry.