Gas, schmas. Here’s the Toyota iQ, an actual, real car that’s available for pre-order in Europe now and will hit the roads there in January. It’s small, yes, but it can hold four people – Toyota recommends three adults and one child – and best of all, it gets a pretty amazing 55+ miles per gallon.
There will be three available models; the iQ uses a one-liter gasoline engine to get 55 miles to the gallon, the iQ2, which uses a 1.4-liter diesel engine to get 57 miles to the gallon, and a third version that’s still in development – presumably the iQ3 – that’ll use some crazy engine that actually turns all the way off when you come to a stop and then starts back up when you take your foot off the brake. Think of it like sleep mode for your car. That one will be ready sometime next year.
No word on when we might expect to see these here in the US, but hopefully it’ll be soon. Consumer Guide seems to think that we’d see the car here “no earlier than autumn 2009” and that prices could range between $13,000 and $17,500.
holy smokes! A chain drive car? Didn’t I build a chain drive optima mid remote control car 20 years ago?
And why are we after europe? The market is here, there are no vehicles. I just got back from Mexico and there are tons of major car companies who have small cars for sale — the ford Ka was one particularly good looking one. I can’t imagine it takes much retooling (some, yes, a lot, no) to get them up here…
Chain drive is:
light
cheap
extremely efficient
O-rings on pins (I imagine) … might run in a sealed oil-bath environment
But “95″ fuel … that 10.9:1 CR requires it, tho.
BTW, I am in Berlin and LOADS of small no-overhang small cars (ease of parking)like the Ka and makes not sold in US: Peugeot (sp?), Renault, Alfa, etc.
I’m with Diem- Why is the US put off so long? Our auto manufactures are in big trouble because they didn’t stay up with the Japanese quality and small cars… The US needs a small two and four place car- we need it now…