BYD $1211 (-0,58 %) will present the lightweight electric car in less than a week at the Japan Mobility Show.
Shortly before the big debut, the Chinese electric car giant has already given a sneak preview of its first electric kei car.
In case you're not familiar with kei cars: These are the tiny vehicles that can be found on Japan's roads.
Kei cars are the smallest street-legal vehicles and are among the most popular vehicles in Japan.
Japanese car manufacturers such as Honda $7267 (-0,53 %), Nissan $7201 (-0,89 %) and Suzuki $7269 (+1,67 %) rely on them for a large part of their domestic sales.
Last year, around 1.55 million kei cars were sold in Japan, which corresponds to around 40% of new car sales.
The Honda N-Box was the most popular model for the third year in a row.
BYD will be making its first attempt to gain a foothold in Japan, which has historically been tough on foreign car brands.
In less than a week, we will get our first look at the electric kei-car.
In the meantime, BYD has previewed the lightweight electric vehicle for the first time, revealing a boxy profile typical of kei-cars.
To be considered a kei-car, the vehicle must be less than 3.4 meters long. BYD's smallest electric vehicle, the Seagull, measures 3.78 meters.
The preview confirms the design we've seen in camouflaged prototype tests over the past few months.
A right-hand drive model was spotted in July, suggesting that it could be launched outside Japan, for example in the UK or Southeast Asia.
Japanese car manufacturers are reportedly already preparing for the market launch of BYD's light electric car.
According to a Nikkei report from earlier this year, a Suzuki dealer said: "It would be a big threat if the company were to launch cheap models in Japan."
