KEI TO THE CITY

hey may be wildly popular in the import motherland of Japan; however, locally, we haven’t quite clicked onto the benefits that kei cars have to offer. It’s probably to do with the difference in tax costs between here and there; in Japan, vehicle regulations ream owners of larger capacity vehicles and offer the most relief to vehicles that fall within the kei category — short for keijido¯ sha, translating to ‘light automobile’ in English — which are regulated by a maximum vehicle size, an engine capacity of 660cc, and a power output of just 47kW. These tax breaks and lower insurance costs, paired with solid fuel economy, have made