A wave of minicars is waiting to swerve as all automakers want a piece of action in this segment. GM, BMW, Volkswagen and Toyota are all preparing minicars. Toyota has decided to speed up the development of its minicars and is reportedly working with Yamaha for the development of an engine for its minicar.
With engine production gone to Yamaha, Toyota will be able to reduce development time and bring its minicar, the iQ to the markets by early 2009. The engine from Yamaha is likely to be a 1.0L engine derived from motorcycle engines and configured to run a minicar.
The production version of the iQ will keep the same 3+1 seating as displayed in the concept and will be nearly 3 meters in length. 100,000 cars will be produced of which 80,000 will go to Europe and the remaining will be for Japan. There are speculations that a low cost version will be manufactured in India for catering to the emerging markets.
[Via: Motorauthority]
