Please Toyota, make this a hybrid (or electric)! (It would be my next car if available in 2009) Otherwise hopefully I can hold out until 2010 for an electric.

"Will go on sale in Japan [...] and in Europe." Where have I seen this before?! At this rate we will be driving supercharged amphibious tanks on the flooded streets of our coastal cities 20 years from now, while China has gone 100% solar.

I see a back seat, but I don't see any leg room. I still want one.

The way I understand it, there's basically no legroom behind one of the front seats (probably driver, since wheel takes more room), and there's some legroom behind the other seat (passenger).

Still, for people living in urban areas without children, that would be perfect.

This isn't bad at all. One of the problems I've had with some of these tiny cars is that they seem to built on the premise that you don't have any stuff to transport and in order to be really workable in the US...you wind up needing a second vehicle, which defeats the whole "Reduce" concept. A two person car that fits a few bags of grocery would be almost perfect.

A bicycle is a far better investment for going grocery shopping. That's what I do.

I haven't been to costco in a while though.

Every neighborhood should have grocery stores within five blocks' walking so we don't have to DRIVE to get everyday necessities! Far more cost-effective long-term.

Technology will not save us. (smaller and smaller cars, more electric cars)

Smallest Four-Passenger Car in the World: as long as one of them is TINY. It's technically a 3+1 passenger car. Way to spout Toyota's advertising, Treehugger.

And this is only the smallest in length. The iQ is heavier, taller, and wider than the Fiat 500, but you wouldn't want to actually tell people that, would you?

Title should read: Toyota iQ: The Shortest (in length) 3+1 Passenger Car in the World

I see captain pedantic is on board, we can set sail!

This is a good start. @1962 lbs it could still be made lighter using composite panels. (provided it doesn't have them now) If I were to buy an IQ (provided I could fit comfortably in it in the first place at 6'4") I'd yank out the pointless back seats to save weight and to make it a more usable cargo area.

I still have to agree with Ken though a bike plus a trailer makes a great grocery getter and the concept of New Urbanism needs to be better utilized in our communities.

I would be interested in an IQ; it's a pity Toyota doesn't want to bring it to North America right away. I was interested in a SmartCar until I found how far away the dealer/service department is. That's not a problem with Toyota, and the IQ has bettter fuel economy. The article refers to it as good for urban dwellers with no kids. I see it as an idealsecond or third car for a family. I have two teens and my oldest has been driving my 1992 Civic to college. I don't know how much longer the Civic will last, but the IQ would be a great replacement when the time comes!

"Please Toyota, make this a hybrid (or electric)! (It would be my next car if available in 2009) Otherwise hopefully I can hold out until 2010 for an electric."

They don't make the iQ or the Yaris in Hybrid because they don't have room for the batteries and they already get better mileage than a Prius.

I thought iQ was coming to NA but I guess I was misinformed. That's disappointing but I can see "average Americans" would never want or go for something like this. Sigh....

Wow, a few days later and I read from AutoBlogGreen

While a hybrid version of the iQ is almost a certainty at some point given that Toyota has publicly stated its intent to offer hybrid versions of every model they build, AutoExpress is reporting that a 500cc plug-in hybrid iQ will debut in 2010.

Pretty neat. Hopefully they'll offer it in North America!

@ M Like I said before my biggest issue with the iQ is fitting into it. The tester in the Edmund's article was 6'3" and said that it wasn't suitable for someone over 5'10" for any extended distance.

Unfortunately "Merkans" have the misguided idea that big = safe

This vehicle is a big (no pun intended) step in the right direction, but folks, whatever happened to the Toyota Eco Spirit? Google that and you'll see what I'm referring to.

This was a working concept vehicle which purportedly got 104 mpg!!!!!!!! Not sure if it was a diesel or what, but jeeze, 104 mpg!!!!!!!!

Why isn't Toyota manufacturing that little baby? And we're supposed to get excited about 54 mpg?

Bob

Well, as a Tall American, I have to say, if Toyota builds this the same way they build the Corolla, then I'm not disappointed that they not bringing it to the U.S.

Honda, OTOH, seems to understand that some of us are taller than 5'9" (not that there's anything wrong with being 5'9" or shorter -- in fact, you're lucky in that you do have more choice in small cars).

Most majior auto manufacturers ALL make fuel efficient city cars. yet very few of them ever come to America. Too bad for America. I bought and drive a Yaris hatchback because it's the one of the most fuel efficient cars in America, and also one of the lowest cost in this country. All the manufacturers should get over their fears or reluctance and bring their city cars to the US. I believe that they would be amazed as to how well they would sell in this country. An onslaught of city cars in the US would jumpstart the competitiion in this class in the US. Me? I'd love to buy a new Fiat 500 in the US - but of course that will probably never be available. And if it was affordable and offered in the US, I'd be driving a VW 1-Litre car.

Most majior auto manufacturers ALL make fuel efficient city cars. yet very few of them ever come to America. Too bad for America. I bought and drive a Yaris hatchback because it's the one of the most fuel efficient cars in America, and also one of the lowest cost in this country. All the manufacturers should get over their fears or reluctance and bring their city cars to the US. I believe that they would be amazed as to how well they would sell in this country. An onslaught of city cars in the US would jumpstart the competitiion in this class in the US. Me? I'd love to buy a new Fiat 500 in the US - but of course that will probably never be available. And if it was affordable and offered in the US, I'd be driving a VW 1-Litre car.

why mess with any polluting cars??
we want electric cars!!!

Lots of manufacturers neglect that in cramped cities in the UK, with cars parked everywhere, we need narrower cars not just shorter.

@ "GreenPlanet"
Current top line batteries store only about 1% as much energy as gasoline pound for pound. Yes the electric drive can use it more efficiently than a gas engine so the battery disadvantage is more like a factor of 30. For the same range you can carry 70 pounds of gas or 2100 pounds of batteries. Batteries are heavier than gas per cubic unit and so you only need about ten times the amount of space for the energy equivalent of 11 ¼ gallons of gas.

Cars need to get lighter (carbon fiber anyone?) and more aerodynamic so that the energy needed to move them is reduced.
Putting what amounts to glorified laptop batteries in a conventionally constructed (read: steel) automobile isn't the answer.

If you really want a "GreenPlanet" you need to give up the bourgeois concept of a "personal car", move closer to work (urban sprawl is bad m'kay) in order to utilize public transportation (or shockingly - a bicycle), and support concepts like new urbanism and sustainable neighborhoods.

well the answer is certainly not driving tiny cars, or for that matter living in tiny houses/apartments. We have a design problem. City life as we know it was never designed to be sustainable. Huge, extravagant country homes or suburban mcmansions are just as unsustainably designed. Fundamentally and unequivocally, they do not recycle and use local energy flows, and they do not infinitely recycle their resources. Both ways are ecological parking lots that require massive external inputs.

Sustainability is qualitative, not quantitative. So using less per person, however noble, is at best palliative & transitional, and any gains from using less would be overriden by increasing population and time.

So what we have is a design problem not an efficiency problem, as Cradle to Cradle mentions, unless the efficiency comes from a whole systems, eternal (or length of the life of the sun) perspective. Let us not vault the tiny homed person who still burns a "tiny" bit of petroleum but still has no understanding of or relationship to nature. The "No Impact" man is honourable, but it is ultimately a sad state to be in. Let us be proactive about being "Positive Impact" men and women. Let us instead use our dollar & voting power & ingenuity to support, design, and learn from natural systems that have no long distance, external inputs other than from the local ecology, but that can house and be enriched by humans.

I think if you took out the front seat I'd fit in there well enough to drive short distances.

It is good to see some auto makers responding to the demand for fuel efficient earthy friendly cars.