The Japan Postal Service, which until recently, thanks to vast savings of the Japanese non-consumer, was part of the largest bank in the world, has just made the momentous decision to go all electric with its vehicle fleet. As reported in the Guardian and on Bloomberg, this proved to be a real shot in the arm for GS Yuasa which gained 6% and Furukawa Battery Co (a stock I shall add shortly) upping by 12%.

Leaving aside the pretty much unrivalled expertise Japanese firms have in carmaking and advanced batteries, Japan is well-suited for the early arrival of electric vehicles delivering postal services for other reasons too. These are;

i) It's an island nation with no oil or gas resources to speak of and is far more vulnerable to energy security concerns
ii) It has a great deal of low carbon nuclear electrical infrastructure and relatively high solar penetration (although still tiny, a weak point really)
iii) Most of the population lives at high density in urban areas favouring short-run, low emissions, stop start slow speed delivery vehicles

So if you're in Japan electric vehicles are going to become a very common sight. It's also interesting to learn that conventional acid batteries are coming under price pressure because of the rising price of lead. The global lead-acid starter battery market it would seem is not growing that fast of all - from sales of EUR 856m today to maybe EUR 1 billion in 2014.