As electric cars' prospects brighten, Japan fears being left behind

At a factory near the base of Mount Fuji, workers painstakingly assemble transmissions for some of the world’s top-selling cars. The expensive, complex components, and the workers’ jobs, could be obsolete in a couple of decades. The threat: battery-powered electric vehicles.

Their designs do away with the belts and gears of a transmission, as well as thousands of other parts used in conventional cars. Established suppliers are nervous, especially in Japan, where automaking is a pillar of the economy — and where industrial giants have been previously left behind by technological change.

“If the world went all-EV today, it would kill my