An old story with updates

http://nf2045.blogspot.fr/2012/11/what-has-happened-to-japans-radioactive.html

What has happened to Japan's radioactive cars?

When the nuclear reactors in Fukushima exploded in 2011, approximately 8,000 square kilometers were heavily contaminated with fallout and residents were forced to evacuate, probably for the rest of their lives. This news has been widely reported, but another aspect of the contamination received almost no coverage. It took a while for authorities to lock down the evacuation zones, and in those first few weeks there appeared to be no awareness of the need to control the movement of contaminated property out of the zone. People's clothes and belongings, even their cash, were likely covered in radioactive dust, but the objects of most obvious concern should have been vehicles.

Because the government failed to quickly control the movement of vehicles and guarantee fair compensation to owners, people stuck with a "hot car" had to choose between taking a total loss on an expensive and essential personal asset, or selling it as soon as possible before the market woke up to the risk and valued these cars at zero. Within a few months there were reports of radioactive cars showing up in used car lots far from Fukushima. It seems to have not occurred to any journalists writing about this problem that TEPCO and the Japanese government had a moral obligation to compensate car owners whose vehicles were ruined by radiation. People wring their hands about what can be done to stop these sales, but they fail to see that the only question is whether the guilty parties, and/or insurance companies, are going to offer the fair value that these vehicles had on March 10, 2011.

Dealers recognized that there was going to be a lot of trouble from shifting radioactive cars around domestically, so they also turned to the export market. There were reports of hundreds of Japanese used cars being turned away at ports in Russia and Australia. Then the Japanese government cracked down, as much as they could (always reactive rather than proactive – a day late and a dollar short), so more radioactive cars started showing up at domestic dealers. But dealers and consumers got wise and bought dosimeters to make sure that they didn't get stuck with a worthless car. Still, unscrupulous exporters had enough control over some ports to get some cars out, and they turned to countries that were least likely to be checking. In the fall of 2012 reports came out of African nations telling of radioactive Japanese imports showing up there. Apparently, they are not all as easy to fool as the Japanese exporters believed. Some countries, lacking the instruments to check every used car imported from Japan, have entirely banned them. African policy specialist and journalist, Chika Ezeanya, reported from Nigeria:

“Cars having up to twenty times the permissible level of radiation have found their way to African countries where several governments are clueless or unconcerned about such health risks. Governments of Kenya and Tanzania however, are among the few African countries, who, unable to afford the high cost of testing all incoming vehicles, have expressly banned the importation of cars from Japan into their markets. The Kenyan government went as far as destroying some cars after it hired independent firms to test for radiation levels.”

Sadly, this is just one more example of how Japan deliberately and/or neglectfully blunders through international soft diplomacy and tarnishes its own image. It is incredible that Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Honda and Suzuki don’t care more about what radioactive car exports could do to their brands. If they cared, they would pressure the government to assert control over used car exports. Whether it’s a First World, valuable market or a Third World nation that buys mostly used cars, these struggling Japanese brands cannot afford to be complacent.

[...]

Updates:

July 2014:

Jay Ramey. "Radioactive cars from Japan keep turning up in Central Asia." Autoweek. July 11, 2014.
This report states that persistent exporters are finding ways to get through strict controls at major ports. Radioactive used cars are now coming to market in Central Asia through minor road border crossings. A director of the Disease Prevention Department in Bishkek, Kyrgisztan said the cars can't be sent back, so they might turn them into scrap. I'm not sure how they think that is a solution because scrapping means recycling the material into other consumer goods.
If the Japanese car industry were being managed intelligently, the major manufacturers would have long ago set up a buy-back program for radioactive cars, just as they can afford to do with recalls on other defective products. It would save their brand reputation overseas. It's shameful that they so badly disregarded the safety of consumers in the the developing world and underestimated their ability to detect radioactive cars.

Radioactive cars from Japan keep turning up in Central Asia

July 10, 2014

Read more: http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/radioactive-cars-japan-keep-turning-central-asia#ixzz3xd345Oj6

http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/radioactive-cars-japan-keep-turning-central-asia

A total of 70 used cars imported from Japan and found to have increased levels of radiation are being stored in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and cannot be sent back, according to Silk Road Reporters citing local news outlets. Car retailers in Kyrgyzstan, who have been importing significant numbers of used cars from Japan for resale in the country, have been finding cars that exhibit levels of radiation above normal. Several batches of cars have been seized by the government during the last three years and have at times been sent back to Japan through an agreement with the Japanese government. However, irradiated cars keep turning up in Bishkek, the capital, and not all of them are being detected in a timely manner.

"These cars cannot be dispatched back. Neither China nor Japan will accept them. For this reason, we have to keep them here and deal with their further disposal," Tolo Isakov, director of the Disease Prevention Department in Bishkek, told the AKIpress news outlet, according to Silk Road Reporters.

Isakov told AKIpress and Novosti.kg, another Bishkek-based news outlet, that currently a decision is being made whether to scrap the cars. The cars have been quarantined in an impound lot, but the local authorities do not know what to do with them. The batch of (so far) 70 cars has been building up in the impound lot over time, with cars having come through several other countries. Isakov did not mention the levels of radioactivity that have been detected in these cars, though it is expected to vary from car to car.

The import of used Japanese cars is big business in Central Asia, especially in Mongolia and the Russian far-east regions that are the largest consumers of used Japanese cars in the area. In cities like Vladivostok, Russia, RHD Japanese cars make up roughly 50 percent of all registered passenger cars.

A shipment of 132 irradiated cars was recently detected coming into the port of Vladivostok in January 2014, with the cars having been barred from entry in port, according to the Australian website CarsGuide. Russia has been more successful at detecting irradiated cars coming in from Japan due to stringent checks in the ports of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. However, that is mainly due to the direct route that cargo ships with used cars normally take, in addition to systematic screenings by customs officials. The routes that used Japanese cars usually take to small Central Asian countries like Kyrgyzstan are more circuitous, and cars with radiation levels above normal frequently escape detection as they are driven across the border on license plates from neighboring countries.

January 2014:

Livern Barett. “Radiation Alert - Harmful Elements Detected At Ports In Shipments From Japan.” The Gleaner, Jamaica, January 10, 2014.

“It could be that there is a weakness in the inspection process…”

More than 130 radioactive cars from Japan seized by Russia in 2013.

September 2013:

Russia's Far East Beset with Toxic Japanese Cars

Chinese Customs Seize Radioactive Scrap Metal from Japan