Suzuki Japan Suspends Jimny 5D Orders After 4-Day Demand Creates 3.5 Yr Backlog

It doesn't matter where the cars are made, Audi and BMW both make multiple cars there and nobody is worried about that, in thailand most of the big Japanese 4x4's are made, they are built to the same standards as vehicles made in Europe or Japan.
Jimny sales are affected more by government decisions them market demand.
Just think how many 5 doors would sell in the UK if they were allowed, how many more 3 doors would sell if they didn't have to be classed as commercial vehicles and you could get the rear seats.
All car makers are facing the same problems as governments try to force them to transition to only making EV's.
The jimny's biggest sales hurdle in india is its cheap competition, local makers can design and build cheaper equivalent vehicles that many more people in india can afford, the jimny has 3 huge rivals there that are all bigger and more powerful in its price bracket.
If they dropped the price to be inline with the 2019 release price, they would fly out again, but selling less cars for more money makes much more business sense, even if they over produce them now and stop making them later, there's going to be plenty of sales to move them on.
That's one thing the Japanese crazy ordering shows us, sure many will pull out due to the wait, but now they are in the market there will be steady sales in the future, they are in demand.
I am curious if they will do a 5 door kei car version with the 660cc motor.

Bob9863 wrote:

The jimny's biggest sales hurdle in india is its cheap competition, local makers can design and build cheaper equivalent vehicles that many more people in india can afford, the jimny has 3 huge rivals there that are all bigger and more powerful in its price bracket.
If they dropped the price to be inline with the 2019 release price, they would fly out again

It is important to note that the price of the Jimny varies greatly by market.  In India the top-line new Jimny sells for about £13 000, and most examples sell for far less than that. 

Maruti built the new Jimny factory, and designed the new Jimny, with local competition in mind, so I don't think they are surprised by cheap Indian competitors.  They simply found that they could not sell quite as many 5D Jimnys there, at quite the same price, as they expected.  In other words, the offering is not as competitive as they had hoped, and now in order to keep the factory working at economic levels they have to lean more heavily on exports from India than they probably initially planned.

That's actually the reason the 5 door is under 4m long, it's thin so without the flares and the 660cc motor it's a kei car in Japan as you can't have a car that isn't a kei car there unless you also have a garage and it's got less tax on it.
But in india to fall into their lower tax class it has to be under 4m long.
So the 5 door was designed to fit in two different countries tax bracket, rather be designed to be as good as it can be.
But the Indian makers just sell bigger cars for less to keep the same price.
That's hard for the jinny to compete against. The local makers also hold their value better in their native country, unlike in other markets.