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Scion iQ Coming By Early 2011
Tiny Toyota Central to Automaker's Global Carbon Dioxide Reduction Strategy
From the June, 2009 issue of Motor Trend
/ By Paul Horrell
As we predicted last year, Toyota is preparing its tiny iQ 3+1 city car for North America, badged as a Scion. The car could arrive late in 2010 as an 2011 model, or in early 2011 as a 2012. Under Scion's revived one-model-and-out strategy, the iQ would be replaced with something different after a single five-year cycle.
It's less than 118 inches in length, yet seats three adults and has qualified for a five-star rating under the recently toughened European NCAP safety assessment program. Clever packaging innovations enable the passenger to sit further forward than the driver, so an adult can sit behind. A child can squeeze behind a sub-six-foot driver, making the car a 3+1.
Chief engineer Hiroki Nakajima says the tiny car is central to Toyota's global carbon dioxide reduction strategy. It needs minimal modifications, mostly to the bumpers, to meet U.S. standards. The car will be lengthened by an inch and a half, and it still will be six-inches shorter than the body-kitted New York concept car. Airbags will be recalibrated for unbelted and out-of-position occupants. The car has nine bags, including one above the rear window for rear seat occupants' heads in a tail-end impact.
It has been fitted with puny engines, including a 1.0-liter I-3, a 99-horsepower 1.3-liter I-4 and a 1.4-liter diesel, although up to 1.6-liters will fit, Nakajima-san says. A mileage-enhancing stop-start system is already fitted to 1.4-liter versions. The iQ is not a cheap car, selling in Europe for similar prices to the Yaris. It's a design-led premium car for the city-center early adopter, but following criticism that the iQ's cabin plastics are insufficiently premium, they are in for redesign.
The iQ was also the basis for the Toyota FT-EV concept, an "urban commuter battery-electric vehicle," which Toyota has confirmed for production beginning calendar year 2012. Target is a minimum 50-mile range on an eight-hour recharge. Nakajima wants to use lithium-ion, but Toyota still uses nickel metal hydride packs for hybrids for reliability and durability.
The traction motor and power electronics will be packaged under the hood, while the battery pack will replace the gasoline car's ultra-slim under-floor fuel tank. Maximum weight of the BEV will be 2600 pounds, the practical limit for the iQ platform. Hybrid drive would be too expensive and hard to package in a car so small.
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/2009/112_0909_scion_iq/index.html#ixzz0m22yIz00
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