To recap, in the first post about the subject, I showed that he inherited a company from his father (apparently), as opposed to being the “entrepreneur” that the Japanese media with close ties to the government (NHK), etc., lauds him as.
In the case of Koma, however, the ridiculousity factor is of a magnitude even greater than that of Tate—the individual being promoted as in idiot savant IoT entrepreneur—in that the industry Koma is portrayed as ‘disrupting’ (automobiles) is not a new industry based on novel technology recently developed, but is in fact a highly impacted and competitive industry involving a complex product with various practical obstacles. As examples of authentic Japanese companies involved in the competition, see this: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2017/09/f9cda51f8ce7-suzuki-mulls-joining-ev-development-venture-led-by-toyota-mazda.html
The above pattern will be familiar to those acquainted with the material in this blog. It is important to note, however, that Koma basically misrepresents (i.e., lies) the background of the company (e.g., series of Japanese Youtube interviews with him embedded at the end of this post), and that the media repeats his misrepresentations without ever looking into the background of the company (established in 1961). The media is the mouthpiece of oligarchic interests operating through national intelligence services to promote these individuals fraudulently infiltrated into civil society under a flimsy cover as"entrepreneurs".
Many of the Japanese media articles were comparing GLM (which has since been sold!) to Tesla, which is patently ridiculous. In the interview with NHK linked to in the first post (related video in Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ3IcIGA64o), Koma declared that if he had known about automobiles, he would not have been able to enter the industry, because he used knowledge that had nothing to do with automobiles to start the company. Recently, after the front company was sold (apparently he still has a role in its management) an article was published describing what appears to be the gist of a new business model in the automobile industry that garnered investment. That article is linked to and discussed below, but in short, the idea is to produce electric vehicles based on modular, interchangeable components, in what is described as a “commodification” of the automobile sector.
Before examining
recent developments, however, I’m going to start with the first article I
encountered in my newsfeed about Mr. Koma and his funny money company. The was
published by the Asahi Shinbun (a daily newspaper) in April 2017:
It was so
ridiculous it deserved a post on Facebook:
First of all, note
that the vehicle is described as having a top speed of 250 kph (confirmed here
on GLM’s website: http://glm-g4.com/performance/),
which is hardly something in the “super car” class:
A prototype electric supercar billed as a “yacht on the road” and a shining example of Japanese manufacturing was unveiled in Tokyo on April 18.
The GLM-G4, from start-up firm GLM Co., is a scissor-doored four-seater luxury electric vehicle (EV) with a top speed of 250 kph.
“I want to create supercars with sophisticated details that are full of Japanese technology,” said GLM President Hiroyasu Koma at the event.
The car is expected to retail for 40 million yen ($367,000), and the company aims to sell 1,000 units in Japan and markets such as Europe, China and the Middle East.
Another article
published on the same day by the Nikkei Asia Review entitled, “Japan’s GLM aims
to be the Ferrari of electric vehicles’” (https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Japan-s-GLM-aims-to-be-the-Ferrari-of-electric-vehicles)
reads:
OSAKA -- A high-performance luxury electric
vehicle under development by Japanese automaker GLM will lead the company's
charge into foreign markets.
The G4 will have an electric battery pack and
motors, running 400km on one charge. Yet the model also will sport 540
horsepower and achieve acceleration from zero to 100kph in 3.7 seconds.
GLM eyes sales of 1,000 units, with a price tag
of 40 million yen ($368,000) -- on par with European and other luxury cars. The
G4 will be the automaker's second model, following the Tommy Kaira ZZ electric
sports car, which was sold only in Japan.
The automaker's aggressive pricing is
deliberate, as the company aims to be "the Ferrari of electric
vehicles," said Tomohisa Tanaka, a director at GLM.
"Luxury cars actually have little competition,
so it is easier to target that market," said Koma.
As mentioned in
the first blogpost, not one of the cars was ever manufactured—let alone sold on
the open market—before the presumed Japanese front company was sold to the
presumed Hong Kong front company.
Here’s an image
from another interview with Koma.
http://www.gettyimages.co.jp/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%99%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88/co-ceo-hiroyasu-koma-interview-663810129#hiroyasu-koma-president-and-chief-executive-officer-of-glm-co-speaks-picture-id594432588
Next, NHK followed
uptheir interview with a television piece about Koma and the display model of
the purported EV supercar:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/newsroomtokyo/features/20161130.html
Here, note that
the video describes the car as having 540 HP.
On the GLM
company website (http://glm.jp/about/), the
car is described as using an electric motor sourced from Kyoto company Yuasa originally
for a vehicle manufactured Mitsubishi. The website describes three different
types of chassis design for three corresponding types of vehicles: “MR Sports”,
“Grand Touring”, and “Small Vehicle” (http://glm.jp/technology/).
There is a lot of hype on the Internet about GLM, including a lot of photos and
videos of promotional events, etc., but has very little technical or
engineering-related information. Perhaps that is because there is none—or
almost none—based on the company’s intellectual property rights (i.e., patents)
portfolio. As I mentioned at the end of the first post, GLM owns a grand total
of one single patent of apparently negligible value.
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=JP91711979&recNum=1&maxRec=2&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=FP%3A%28%22%E8%87%AA%E5%8B%95%E8%BB%8A%E7%94%A8%E3%83%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%95%E3%83%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%81%8A%E3%82%88%E3%81%B3%E3%81%9D%E3%82%8C%E3%82%92%E7%94%A8%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E8%87%AA%E5%8B%95%E8%BB%8A%22%29&tab=FullText
The first trick
used to try to promote the company and append some sort of automobile-related
aura to Kyoto was the reincarnation of the Tommykaira ZZ (a short-lived 1990s project) as an EV
vehicle. The recently published article describing the business model concept
describes only that project however, and fails to mention anything else about
the purported super car. In other words, the Tommykaira ZZ was an already
existing automobile that GLM simply converted to an electric car, though the
circumstances are somewhat unclear/obfuscated by this article (the most
detailed I’ve found): https://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/20140218-TEHRAN-BECKONS/Business/Electric-carmaker-GLM-sees-open-roads-across-Asia,
https://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/20140218-TEHRAN-BECKONS/Business/Electric-carmaker-GLM-sees-open-roads-across-Asia?page=2.
This section on “tie-ups” is informative:
"We envision three types of tie-ups," he
told the Nikkei Asian Review. First, GLM can export the chassis, fully loaded,
and have its tie-up partner assemble the exterior body and windows locally.
Second, GLM can export just the chassis and the
vehicle control unit, and leave the local partner to negotiate with Japanese
parts suppliers for the remaining components.
In the third option, probably for later down the
road, the local partner can mount locally produced batteries and motors to a
chassis provided by GLM. In this scenario, GLM would have more of an advisory
role.
That appears to have
largely been a promotional gimmick that was used to build up some hype before
the falsely promoted front company was sold to another front company in a media
spectacle aiming to make the respective Kyoto and Hong Kong front companies
look like tech savvy innovators capable of competing with Tesla, Toyota, etc. Nevertheless,
as seen above, Japanese newspaper described GLM as an “automaker”. It would not
be infeasible that the Hong Kong jewelry company that bought GLM aims to enter
the auto market in mainland China, but there has been no indication of any such
movement. Moreover, GLM owns negligible intellectual property, which tends to
indicate they have created nothing of value that could be marketable.
These excerpts
are from the most recent article (https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20171031/p2a/00m/0na/003000c):
From the 1990s, the
electronics industry quickly shifted to a "horizontal division of
labor," outsourcing the development and production of the main components
of televisions and computers such as semiconductors and liquid crystal screens
to outside companies. As a result, these products became
"commodities" for general use, and because it became difficult to
distinguish between the end products in terms of technology or performance,
Japanese manufacturers lost out to Chinese and South Korean makers armed with
cheap labor and mass production who offered the products at lower prices.
"We cannot allow
for the commoditization of automobiles," said Toyota Motor Corp. President
Akio Toyoda, showing an inclination toward in-house development and
manufacturing of products with the use of high-performance fuel cell batteries
for electric vehicles. However, in August, Nissan Motor Corp. announced plans
to sell all shares in its electric vehicle fuel cell subsidiary to a Chinese
investment fund, and otherwise made moves to adapt to the changes in the
market.
GLM Co., a venture
firm founded by Kyoto University in 2010, released 99 limited units of an
electric sports car. The motor, fuel cells and other main parts were jointly
developed with major manufacturers Yaskawa Electric Corp. and Omron Corp., and
the manufacturing itself was all handled externally. The company is planning to
release another 1,000 vehicles of two new models in 2019. Representative
director and president Hiroyasu Koma said, "The trends in the automobile
industry will shift just like in the electronics industry, shifting to a
horizontal division of labor for manufacturing from now on."
The last article
I’ll examine is another Nikkei article (July 10, 2017), this one titled, “Hong
Kong watchmaker snaps up 'Japan's Tesla' for $114mn” (https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Hong-Kong-watchmaker-snaps-up-Japan-s-Tesla-for-114mn).
HONG KONG -- Watchmaker O Luxe Holdings said on
Sunday it will buy Japanese electric vehicle startup GLM for about 896 million
Hong Kong dollars ($114 million).
Of course, it is
not even true that O Luxe is a “watchmaker,” but that is perhaps a topic for another post...
GLM was set up as a Kyoto University venture in
2010. The company develops, manufactures and sells electric vehicles and is
often referred to as "Japan's Tesla," after its American rival.
Again, they keep
spewing promotional disinformation about GLM, and one can only wonder why a
leading Japanese economics newspaper would do that. GLM doesn’t deserve to me
mentioned in the same sentence with Tesla, or Toyota, for that matter.
I will
eventually polish these posts up a little, but am putting this up now simply to
put these fraudulent people, enterprises, and media promotions behind me—for the
moment—as there are others to address…
For those who speak Japanese, there is a series of interviews I've come across on Youtube of Koma that details some of the points made in these two posts:
For those who speak Japanese, there is a series of interviews I've come across on Youtube of Koma that details some of the points made in these two posts:
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