The experience of entering Expo 2025 Osaka under severe heat, followed by the later revelations surrounding the EV buses, symbolizes the degeneration of Japan’s ruling class.
Starting from his own on-site experience, the author condemns the intellectual stagnation of exam-bred elites, dependence on China, and the complicity of the old media.
Through the chain of events surrounding the Expo, this essay lays bare a deep-seated disease within Japanese society.

I began visiting and photographing the Kansai Expo last year during the hot summer period, when day after day of clear skies meant ideal conditions for photography.
On one of my first few visits, I was left exposed for more than an hour at the entrance gate under the blazing heat of extreme midsummer.
I joined the Expo late, but I purchased an annual pass.
Until then, I had been able to enter as I was, but on that day I was suddenly told that my camera had to be inspected.
It was a one-hour line under the scorching sun in the midst of extreme heat.
Before even entering, I was already in a state close to heatstroke.
Without thinking, I raised what may be called a “Nobunaga-like roar.”
“If they had not wasted tens of billions of yen paying China to buy those worthless electric buses, this site is vast, and moreover, not all the gates are even being used.
They should at least be using all the gates they already have, but they seem short of personnel… Simply increasing staffing and hiring more people would itself expand domestic demand.
Pouring money into some dubious electric buses from China does nothing to expand domestic demand.
If they had built at least twice as many entrance gates as they have now, there would never have been such an inhuman spectacle.
Even merely doubling the entrance gates would have had an economic effect.
The people who poured nearly 10 billion yen into Chinese-made electric buses should take responsibility…”
Even after entering, my anger did not subside.
Nearby, there was a staff member who, by all appearances, seemed to be a police officer, so I spoke to him.
He completely agreed with my opinion.
He said, “Yes, quite a number of people are being transported every day because of heatstroke.
It’s just not being reported.”
Soon after the Expo ended, an article appeared on X saying that most of those electric buses were defective, unusable, and had turned into bad assets, together with photographs showing large numbers of buses left abandoned.
A little while ago, an X post appeared that proves that article was entirely correct.
The following article is proof that the old media, the business world, the Expo leadership, and political operators, all of them, have fallen into China’s honey trap and money trap.
It is also proof that my Nobunaga-like roar struck the exact mark.
Even so, all the people of Japan should once again recognize the stark fact that mere exam high-achievers have formed Japan’s elite class, and that almost all of them have fallen into China’s traps.
The following is from a Nikkei newspaper article.
“Subsidy repayment to be demanded from Osaka Metro over EV buses used at the Osaka Expo.”
2026/4/3
At a press conference on the 3rd, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Kaneko Yasuyuki revealed that the ministry would demand the return of subsidies from Osaka Metro over electric buses made by EV Motors Japan of Kitakyushu City, which had been used at the Osaka-Kansai Expo and had suffered repeated trouble.
This was in light of the fact that concerns over vehicle safety had not been resolved, and Osaka Metro had abandoned plans to convert them for use as route buses after the Expo and had decided not to use them.
According to the ministry, it had provided about 600 million yen in subsidies to Osaka Metro for the purchase of 50 electric buses made by EV Motors Japan.
The Ministry of the Environment, which had likewise provided subsidies, also plans to demand repayment from Osaka Metro.
Osaka Metro possesses a total of 190 electric buses made by the company through the use of subsidies from both ministries and other funds, but at the end of March it announced that it would “not use them in the future.”
Because operational trouble had continued, in October of last year the ministry conducted an on-site inspection of EV Motors Japan.
In November of the same year, EV Motors Japan filed a recall notice with the ministry, saying that in some vehicles there was a risk that the front-wheel brake hoses could be damaged.
At the press conference, Mr. Kaneko said that the ministry would keep a close watch on the company’s efforts to prevent recurrence and added that “we will take further measures as necessary.” [Kyodo]
The following is from a Toyo Keizai article.
“What exactly is the fast-rising EV Motors Japan?”
“A notable Kitakyushu company making EV buses in partnership with Chinese firms”
Takeshi Momota: Journalist
2023/12/19 9:40
Wakamatsu Ward in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture.
After the Meiji Restoration, this area became a collection point for coal carried overland from the Chikuho coal mines, as demand for coal rose sharply with Japan’s modernization.
According to Wakamatsu Ward, output from the Chikuho coal mines accounted for more than 50 percent of the domestic share during the Taisho period.
Thanks to that, the area around Wakamatsu Port on Dokai Bay, a key point of maritime transport, prospered.
It is in this Wakamatsu Ward that EV Motors Japan, an EV-related venture founded in April 2019, has its headquarters.
Although it calls itself “Japan” in its company name, it is not the Japanese arm of an overseas manufacturer, but a Japanese company.
More than 100 vehicles were scheduled to run at the Osaka-Kansai Expo.
EV Motors Japan exhibited at the Japan Mobility Show 2023 and displayed EV buses that were to be delivered in numbers of about 100 to Osaka Metro for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, drawing attention from reporters and visitors.
However, although EV Motors Japan is a company based in Kitakyushu, it gives the impression that Tokyo-based media have had few opportunities to introduce its actual substance.
So on this occasion, the writer visited EV Motors Japan’s headquarters in Wakamatsu Ward, Kitakyushu City, and interviewed its founder, President, and CTO Hiroyuki Sato.
First, he was asked to look back on the background of the company’s establishment.
On the company’s homepage, it says, “For more than 30 years, as a top runner in the development of lithium-ion battery charge-discharge application systems, we have supported the safety of lithium-ion batteries around the world with Japanese technology.”
What exactly does this “more than 30 years of experience” mean?
Mr. Sato says that since 1987, while working at a comprehensive engineering company, he had been involved with lithium-ion batteries “not as a chemist, but as an electrical (control) engineer.”
He says he worked on various projects for major Japanese electronics manufacturers and others.
More specifically, he says he specialized in research and development related to “charge-discharge effects” in the “activation process,” including inverters capable of both charging and discharging and associated motor control.
In 2009, he founded a manufacturer of charge-discharge equipment himself and says that in the Chinese market as well, he became deeply involved from the earliest stages of China’s automotive and EV industries, including with major Chinese EV bus manufacturers.
Why cooperate with Chinese companies to make EV buses?
Why, then, did EV Motors Japan adopt a business model specializing in commercial EVs such as buses?
The background lies in Mr. Sato’s actual experiences in both Japan and China.
The turning point in Japan was the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.
The inverter manufacturing plant his company had in Fukushima was damaged.
After that, when the governor of Fukushima at the time and politicians from the area expressed the desire to “foster the battery industry in Fukushima,” Mr. Sato came to think, from the perspective of “a new disaster-prevention system,” that “EV buses, which could serve as mobile power supply vehicles in emergencies, might grow into a promising industry.”
Also, with no prospect for quick restoration of damaged railway lines, attention gathered around the introduction of urban transport systems such as BRT, and he thought that “considering running costs, EV conversion might be possible.”
Meanwhile, in China, the spread of EV buses had already begun in the latter half of the 2000s, before the Great East Japan Earthquake.
At the time, through repeated reporting, the writer felt keenly that the Chinese government positioned major national events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games as showcases for the latest technology including EV buses, strongly appealing China’s economic power at home and abroad.
On the basis of such major national events, the Chinese government set a policy in its 12th Five-Year Plan of aiming for innovative technological development in environmental and IT fields.
Regarding EVs, there is a history in which the national policy called “Ten Cities, Thousand Vehicles” was expanded to 25 cities in order to spread EV buses and EV taxis.
During the first half of the 2010s, Mr. Sato proceeded with research and development concerning EV buses in China.
According to Mr. Sato, the 2007 “Joint Communiqué on Promoting Cooperation in the Fields of Environment and Energy” through intergovernmental negotiations between Japan and China was “a major boost” to this project.
In this way, Mr. Sato became deeply involved in EV bus development, from the viewpoint of Fukushima reconstruction in Japan and next-generation technology development in China.
The background to the establishment of EV Motors Japan.
EV Motors Japan was established in 2019.
Mr. Sato explained the background of its establishment as follows.
“If EV buses are to be mass-produced with an eye to the Japanese market, body dimensions dedicated to Japanese safety standards are required, and they must also be designed specifically for Japan so that they can be used for more than 20 years from introduction as new vehicles, preventing corrosion from coastal driving and anti-freezing agents.
In that case, it becomes necessary to conduct business with a limited battery manufacturer.”
This is interpreted as meaning that it became necessary to raise funds to establish a new company, distinct from the previous business structure of dealing broadly with the battery manufacturer industry.
As for the production system, he emphasized that “we currently cooperate with three Chinese companies in vehicle body manufacturing.
The batteries used are from Japanese and Chinese manufacturers, but the BMS and inverters are self-designed, and some of that manufacturing is done in China,” stressing that the parts related to the powertrain, a core EV technology, are based on “technology cultivated in Japan.”
Such a management policy of EV Motors Japan also came at a good time for Chinese companies.
Because until 2020 there had been a national subsidy system related to EV manufacturing, there were not a few EV bus manufacturers considering overseas expansion.
“Zero Emission e-PARK” under construction.
EV Motors Japan is now building in Wakamatsu Ward an experiential EV complex facility called “Zero Emission e-PARK,” based on the concept of realizing a zero-emission society.
This will ultimately become a production base for commercial EVs on the scale of 1,500 vehicles, but Mr. Sato emphasized that preparations for e-PARK were progressing, saying, “We want to use it not only for final assembly, but also as an R&D base and as a test course including autonomous driving.
We also aim to create a space where many people can actually experience EVs.”
He also suggested that, with EV conversion of buses in Japan expected at a pace of around 10,000 vehicles annually in the future, depending on sales, manufacturing only at e-PARK may become insufficient.
He added that although vehicle bodies and parts are manufactured in China, because standards for the Chinese domestic market and those for exports such as Japan and Europe differ, at present sales within China are not being considered.
He further said that consideration is being given to knockdown production in Southeast Asia.
Knockdown is a production method in which parts are exported and final assembly is carried out locally, taking tariffs into account.
Mr. Sato also has past experience in examining the use of EVs in renewable energy-related development in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, verifying rapid charging and securing self-sustaining power sources under hot and humid conditions.
More recently, together with Kitakyushu City and others, the company has undertaken a project commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment related to intercity cooperation for realizing a decarbonized society, investigating the potential for decarbonized urban development and renewable energy-related projects in cooperation with Koror State in Palau.
What is the basis for the pricing?
Speaking of EVs, the sticking point is the high vehicle price.
On this point, Mr. Sato has set a certain benchmark of “keeping it within 1.5 times that of engine vehicles.”
He explained the basis for this with the following trial calculation.
“Battery cost is about one-third of the vehicle price.
The cruising range is more than 200 km, and running costs are about one-fifth compared with engine-equipped EVs in China and about one-third in Japan, so depreciation is possible in three to five years.
Excluding the battery, engine-equipped EVs and EV buses are almost the same price.”
Furthermore, for the time being, subsidies are also available from the national government and local governments for vehicle purchases and charging infrastructure.
Finally, when asked about EV Motors Japan’s future goals, Mr. Sato gave a clear answer: “With the battery at the core, we want to prepare quickly for large-scale disasters such as those that occurred in Fukushima.”
Although the perspective of “achieving carbon neutrality by 2050” naturally exists, he argued for the need for realistic disaster-prevention measures in Japan, where the energy self-sufficiency rate is low compared with Europe, the United States, and China, and where the probability of major earthquakes remains high.
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On top of that, he said that for Japan to survive in the next-generation global industrial world, it should aim to export infrastructure for building “new urban transport systems,” including energy management systems that make self-sustaining power generation and charging possible within regions and workplaces, while coordinating with the power grid for shortages and avoiding electricity peaks.
I am expected to hold great hopes for the future leap forward of this Japan-origin EV venture, backed by its long record in battery control related to EVs.
It is plain that the writer praising this obviously foul-smelling person and company is one of those people who make a living by parasitizing the old media…
And it is a horrifying reality that such people are crawling around inside NHK, Asahi, Mainichi, Tokyo, Kyodo News, and the rest.