Tama Senior History

Launched in 1949, the Senior was Tama's top-of-range passenger car — a medium-size, four-door electric sedan sitting above the compact Junior. The company, which had by this point renamed itself Tama Electric Car Co., introduced an upgraded battery system that the press and Ministry documentation credited with a claimed 200 km range on a single charge, a figure verified by Snopes as a real period claim (though real-world range under load was likely lower).

The 1950 model year brought a shared modernized all-steel four-door body to both the Junior and Senior lines, reflecting the company's ambition to professionalize its product line-up. Despite the technical advances, the Senior's commercial window was short: the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 drove lead prices up tenfold and caused US occupation authorities to restore full oil supplies to Japan, collapsing the cost advantage that had made EVs viable. By 1951 Tama production had effectively ceased.

In 1952 the successor entity merged into Prince Motor Co., Ltd. — a company that would produce celebrated cars such as the Skyline and Gloria before Nissan absorbed it in 1966. The original 1947 Tama E4S-47 survives in the Nissan Heritage Collection and was restored to running condition in 2010 to coincide with the launch of the Nissan Leaf.