Foreign automakers see their chance in Japan with electric vehicles

FILE PHOTO: Toyota Motor Corporation's bZ models are pictured after a briefing on the company's strategies on battery EVs in Tokyo, Japan, December 14, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

TOKYO (Reuters) - In September, Narumi Abe did something still rare in Japan: she bought a foreign car, picking a Peugeot e-208 over a Honda e because, she said, the Peugeot can travel longer distances between charges.

Abe joined a tiny, but growing, band of Japanese drivers who are eschewing home brands for foreign battery electric vehicles (EVs).