Japan July 2026: BYD Racco lands

The BYD Racco has launched in Japan.

New vehicle sales in Japan are up a sturdy 6.8% in July to 417,163 units, leading to a year-to-date tally up 2.5% or 68,400 units to 2,804,353. Once again local behemoth Toyota (+12%) outpaces its home market to 34.1% share vs. 32.3% so far this year. Honda (+17.9%) does even better and overtakes Suzuki (+1.9%) for second place overall. Daihatsu (-0.5%) records the only YoY loss in the Top 8, albeit tiny. Nissan (+3.6%), Mazda (+3.3%), Subaru (+2.6%) and Mitsubishi (+2%) are all up but trail the market. Mercedes (-14.6%), in serious trouble, manages to keep the #1 foreign brand rank at #11 overall, above BMW (-11.3%), Volkswagen (-3.8%) and Audi (-30.2%) all in similar poor shape. BYD (+68.7%) ranks #24 with a minuscule 0.1% share.

Over in the regular cars ranking, the Toyota Yaris/Cross (-1.6%) edges down but when separating Yaris and Yaris Cross sales the real leader is the Toyota Raize (+83.2%) almost doubling its sales year-on-year. The Raize advances to #2 year-to-date (and “real” #1) with sales up 35.4%. The Toyota Sienta (+31.3%) remains in third place above the Toyota Corolla/Cross (-9.8%). Toyota monopolises the Top 8 this month, with the RAV4 (+185.3%) surfing on the success of its new generation and the Toyota Land Cruiser (+103.2%) down just one spot on a record-breaking #6 last month. The Nissan Leaf (+575.1%), Nissan Kicks (+235.6%), Mazda CX-5 (+129.6%) and Suzuki Jimny (+69.9%) also make themselves noticed below while the Nissan Elgrand (+1055.2%) is pulled up by a new generation.

As for kei cars, the Nissan N-BOX (+34.7%) soars to over 22,500 sales, by far the best-selling overall vehicle in the country. The Suzuki Spacia (-5.3%) struggles but stays at #2 ahead of the Daihatsu Tanto (+31.5%) and Move (-28.1%). The Honda N-ONE (+68.4%), Suzuki Every Wagon (+24.9%), Nissan Roox (+20.8%) and Daihatsu Taft (+29.7%) are very strong below. But the event of the month is the arrival of the BYD Racco EV, the first time a foreign manufacturer conceived a kei car solely for the purpose of selling in the Japanese market, and one of a handful of EVs in the category. It start is modest at 125 sales but it is not yet launched to the public so these are demo sales. Beside, it already accounts for one third of the manufacturer’s July volume. 

Previous post: Japan H1 2026: Honda N-BOX only model above 100,000 sales

Previous month: Japan June 2026: Market up 8.6%, Toyota Land Cruiser breaks ranking record

One year ago: Japan July 2025: Sales drop, Toyota Roomy true leader in regular cars charts

Full July 2026 Top 52 All brands, Top 50 regular cars and Top 32 All kei cars below.