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Test Drive: TOYOTA iQ 1.0 MultiDrive - 2009
Table of contents:
- PHOTO GALLERY
- INTRO / HISTORY / BRAND
- EXTERIOR
- INTERIOR
- IN THE CITY
- OPEN ROAD
- COMFORT
- TECH FACTS
- GADGETS
- SAFETY
- CONCLUSIONS
- GUEST EDITOR OPINIONS
OCTOBER 2009
INTRO / HISTORY / BRAND 7/10
Launched within just a year after it was first presented as a concept car, the Toyota iQ is smart fortwo's first and only real competitor so far. Even its name is a play of words with the intention of poking a little fun at the petite fortwo. Although Toyota's marketing says that the name "iQ" doesn't come from "intelligence quotient", as you might have guessed, it still sounds like a tongue-in-cheek reference.
Since the smart fortwo already had a well-established fan and customer base, the iQ had to bring some new features to the table, which it apparently did. It's longer, it's a bit better-built, it offers "more than two seats", it has both manual and automatic transmissions available, the list of standard features is phenomenal for a car its size and the safety features present in standard are clearly ahead of almost any competition, at any price.
Speaking of which, the Toyota iQ doesn't come cheap, with prices in Europe starting from around 13,000 Euros and reaching up to 17,400 Euros for a fully-loaded model. There are plenty of cars offering better space and comfort for those amounts of money, so there has to be a catch, right? Well, it is and it isn't.
Some say that the iQ didn't exactly work out overall, while other say that it beats the smart fortwo hands downs. We're also having two sides of the story here at autoevolution, and since we also drove its direct competitor, you should read on to find out what we think about the black iQ 1.0 MultiDrive we tested.
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VISUAL IMPACT (EXTERIOR) 6/10
Having the same basic concept as the smart (the largest amount of interior volume in the lowest amount of exterior volume), the iQ has a somewhat similar overall shape, which is that of a futuristic washing machine or a very short phone booth. For some it's the ugliest thing on wheels, while for other it symbolizes the way a perfect city vehicle/pod should look.
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After approaching it you begin to realize the differences between the two are more than obvious thanks to different technical solutions and... of course, styling departments. Toyota's European styling studio is located in France though, right where the smart fortwo is built...
Either way, no one could confuse the two cars if they were parked together, especially since both can fit in a regular parking space. The iQ's front benefits from an Origami-like nose, which is longer than that on the smart because Toyota's engine is located in the front of the car, as is its transmission.
The side view is the almost identical feature, but only if seen from the distance. Taking a closer look at the iQ reveals a slightly shorter and most of all longer car, albeit still making you wonder where did they fit two extra seats. The otherwise skinny tires appear much sportier when viewed from the side, especially if their engulfed on the black chrome rims our test car had.
The rear look much wider than it actually is, mostly thanks to the extremely short rear windshield and the fact that the wheels are pushed apart as far as possible in order to clear the interior and improve stability. On the whole, the Toyota iQ looks either as beautiful/cute or as ugly as the smart fortwo, depending very much on who's looking.
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DEEP IMPACT (INTERIOR) 6/10
The Toyota iQ's interior is probably as well made as the one in the Auris/Corolla. And no, we're not kidding. The fit and finish is pretty outstanding on a car as tiny as this, while the design is both funky and ergonomic at the same time. The only slight quarrel we had with it was the material chosen for the UFO-like triangle on top of the center console, which looks like it has been stolen from an AIWA hi-fi system from the 1990s.
Other than that, everything looks and feels great, especially when talking about the sporty and thick three-spoke steering wheel wrapped in leather, just like part of the seats. The overall space is almost perfectly-sized for a maximum of two grownups though. Never mind what Toyota's marketing is telling you, the four (OK, 3+1) seats advertised by Toyota are a big fat lie, unless you only travel with midgets, small children or amputees as passengers.
The interior space is more than welcoming for two persons, together with all their luggage if the rear seats are folded, kind of making it a much better city dweller than the smart from this point of view. Both feet and head space are comparable to that of a small compact, but naturally that happens only if the two front seats are used. Anyone over the size of a teenager climbing in the back should be an agoraphobic or a masochist.
Oh, did we mention that with all the seats in place the luggage compartment only fits a couple of coke bottles? It has a volume of, wait for it... 32 liters, which is approximately 1.1 cubic feet. Of course, by folding the two rear "seats", the luggage compartment volume increases to about 238 liters (8.4 cu ft), which is slightly bigger than that of the smart fortwo. On the downside, the trunk opening in the iQ is worse, and there is no separate tailgate like in the smart.
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IN THE CITY 9/10
In theory, judging only by the car's technical stats, the Toyota iQ should be the perfect current car for driving in the city. It's the second shortest car in the world after the smart fortwo, it has a Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT), it can turn on a dime thanks to an amazingly short turning radius, it can seat three fully grown persons and a child and the fuel economy is off the hook.
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In reality, it's not exactly as great as it looks. The 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) of extra length it has over the smart fortwo are enough to withheld you from parking two iQs "nose-in" in a regular longitudinal spot, like the smart can. As much as we hated the fortwo's automated manual gearbox, the continuous variable transmission in the Toyota iQ is even worse in city driving, but from entirely different reasons.
Whereas the fortwo's transmission takes forever to change a gear, the CVT in the iQ has seamless gear changes, but at the cost of performance and fuel economy in "stop and go" traffic. Since in our test car it was paired to a gutless 68 horsepower three-cylinder engine, each time we would leave from a traffic light in a somewhat sporty matter the revs would climb to 4000-something rpm and just stay there until the speed would reach around 40-50 kilometers per hour (25-30 mph).
We should mention that the iQ has an "eco" meter, which instantly shows how economical your driving is depending on how hard you press on the accelerator. Even if we tried to keep it in "eco" the whole time, we only managed a fuel consumption of around 8.5-9 liters per 100 kilometers (US 26.1-27.7 mpg). Not a very good figure for the equivalent of a flea among cars, especially since the official numbers are telling us it should have been twice as economical.
Other than the unexpected fuel economy, the iQ was pretty much flawless. It has a turning radius of only 7.8 meters (25.6 feet), which means every time you turn around you fell like the car is slipping on a banana. The visibility on all sides is almost perfect, with a little help coming from the largest exterior rearview mirrors this side of a Fiat 500. Overall, an almost perfect car for the city, just save your money and buy one in manual.
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OPEN ROAD 4/10
Since we already concluded that a Continuous Variable Transmission is positively not suited for a driver with a heavy right foot, from both performance and fuel economy point of views, we didn't expect any "Open Road" praises from it either. Well, contrary to what we were guessing, the CVT is actually very well suited for casual cruising.
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We first noticed this after observing that after you no longer accelerate the rpm settle to the minimum possible for the car to keep moving. For example, at a steady speed of 60 kilometers per hour (37 mph), the rev counter shows a little over 1000 rpm, while the instant fuel consumption remains at a steady and most of all astonishing 2.4 liters per 100 kilometers (US 98 mpg). At a decent cruising speed of let's say 100 km/h (62 mph), the fuel consumption rises to about 4.5-4.8 liters per 100 kilometers (US 49-52.3 mpg).
Sure, all this fuel consumption-related good news will probably go completely unnoticed after you'll get obliterated by an oncoming thirty tonne truck when you try to pass someone at any speed higher than 70 km/h (40 mph). There is simply not enough torque/power or transmission assistance in order for you to "slingshot" past another vehicle.
The zero to 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) time is a snail-competing 15.2 seconds, which feels even slower in reality "thanks" to the same dreadful Continuous Variable Transmission and the fact that even in this petite shape, the car is slightly underpowered.
The overall stability and comfort is almost exactly the same as that in a much larger car though. For example, even though the iQ's wheelbase is about as large a a normal car's front or rear track, we didn't experience any smart fortwo-like seesaw movements. On the whole, if we were to neglect the total lack of performance, the iQ would actually feel like a normal-sized car on the open road.
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FEED ME LIES (COMFORT) 5/10
Continuing our comparo with the smart fortwo in the comfort area, we can honestly say that the Toyota iQ is quite a bit better from this point of view. Don't expect any Roll Royce-like wafting on poor roads, but the little bugger's suspension certainly doesn't shy away from soaking in a decent number of potholes or speed bumps. We would almost compare the iQ's capacity to do this to that of the Golf we tested earlier. Cool stuff!
Read more >>
Even so, you shouldn't trust it with too much from this point of view, the iQ is still smaller that just about everything on the road, except the aforementioned smart car. Sure, there aren't any sea-sickness-inducing motions whenever you're accelerating from a dead stop or hitting the brakes, but that is only partly thanks to the suspension setup.
Another reason for this gentle behavior towards the passengers' kidneys is the Continuous Variable Transmission, of course, which maintains the car completely jerk-free during acceleration and/or gear changes.
The interior space seems just right for a maximum of two persons sitting in the front. Any higher than that number of passengers will automatically mean (much) less comfort for everyone involved. In other words, two's OK, three's definitely a crowd.
As far as the interior comfort features, there were plenty in our test car. The seats were as comfy as in any "regular" Toyota, while the overall ambiance was that of a pretty well-made compact car. Though highly expensive for a car its size, you can totally see where the money has been spent. The great fit and finish and nice "thump!" sound when you close the doors contribute to a very solid overall feeling, while features like keyless entry, light and rain sensors and the funky automatic climate control system are there to provide you with quite a well being sensation.
DEUS EX MACHINA (TECH FACTS) 6/10
The three-cylinder mill under our test car's short hood has a... let's say "decent" potential on tiny cars. For a gasoline engine it uses quite a small amount of fuel and, albeit it doesn't go like stink, it has sufficient performance. Of course, everything we just said about this engine is only true if it's not paired to a rubber-band CVT transmission in a Toyota iQ.
If that happens you can probably say goodbye to a great in-city fuel consumption and/or decent performance. You see, the very same engine is also used by the slightly larger Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1/Peugeot 107 trio and by the much bigger Toyota Yaris. On which of these cars would you guess that the engine behaves the best? If you guessed the petite iQ, you'd be dead wrong.
Strangely-enough in the iQ it feels as gutless as in the much larger Yaris, while the fuel economy is even worse when talking about driving in a crowded city. We suspect this happens for two reasons. First of all, though extremely small, the iQ is no featherweight automobile at 935 kilograms (2061 pounds). While it obviously doesn't actually sound very ponderous, it's almost as heavy as the much larger Yaris, and the class-leading drag coefficient of only 0.30 doesn't help it that much at city speeds.
Second of all, as we mentioned before, in our test car the engine was paired to a CVT, which is all fun and games when it comes to comfort but a total pain in the butt when talking about performance, be it acceleration or fuel economy. The CVT is an impressive piece of technology in theory, but in practice so far it has failed to deliver.
USEFUL TOYS (GADGETS) 6/10
Contrary to what you would think by looking at such a lilliputian vehicle, the Toyota iQ is full of gadgets that you would otherwise expect to find in much larger but not necessarily much more expensive cars. As we said before, the iQ we tested is about as expensive as the Brabus version of the smart fortwo, which isn't exactly the least expensive micro car out there.
Apart from a very impressive array of safety features and the addition of two extra (unusable) seats, the Toyota iQ impresses with a list of gadgets not usually found in cars such as small. The first thing you will probably notice is the keyless entry and engine-start system.
This means that you will probably never have to take your key out of your pocket ever again. You just have to approach the car and the doors will self unlock. Once inside you only have to press the brake pedal and the start button on the dashboard and the three-cylinder mill in the front will suddenly spring to life.
Continuing on the "unlike any other car in its class" bandwagon, our tiny little test car was also equipped with electrically-powered side mirrors, light and rain sensors, two electrically-operated windows with an automatic feature, interior electrochromic rearview mirror, heated front seats and no less than three modes for the CVT.
Apart from the normal "Eco" mode in drive, the gearbox also had a completely pointless "Sport" mode and an odd "Winter" mode. Both "Sport" and "Winter" modes will probably never be used by average drivers, since the first one does almost nothing to improve performance while the second one would be better suited for an off-roader than for a city micro car.
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ON THE SAFE SIDE (SAFETY) 7/10
When the second generation of the smart fortwo came along in 2008, the four stars it achieved at the EuroNCAP crash tests were pretty much the best any car this small had ever achieved. With the help of a very well-planned check list, Toyota engineers were able to make a car only slightly larger, but apparently quite a bit safer than that. Believe it or not, the Toyota iQ achieved no less than five stars at the aforementioned European crash testing authority.
How is this possible since the iQ is only about 30 centimeters (under 12 inches) longer than the fortwo and they both weigh about the same? Well, first of all, the Toyota iQ's engine is fitted in the front instead of being crammed under the luggage compartment. Second of all, it comes with the largest number of standard airbags in any car, ever.
There are the usual front dual-stage airbags, there are side airbags for the front passengers, head curtain airbags, a knee airbag for the driver, an anti-submersing airbag for the front passenger and last but not least, there's also a window-bag which should protect whoever fits in the back from rear impacts. That's a total of no less than nine (9!) airbags spread all around the tiny iQ's interior!
If you're still in doubt you should also learn that the iQ has a standard anti-lock braking system, emergency brake assist and an electronic stability control system (VDC). Frankly, with performance figures so low, we can't imagine why are all these active safety systems present but it's better to have them then not to.
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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (CONCLUSIONS) 6/10
Having tested its number one competitor, the second generation of the smart fortwo, we can provide a pretty clear conclusion about the best side of the Toyota iQ. Even though it loses by a hair in a number of chapters against the smart, it also wins by a notch in other areas as well. Strictly for city driving, even though it's slightly longer, the iQ seems to be a better weapon against congestion. It's more comfortable, better equipped and has a lower turning radius. It's also much, much safer.
The worst part about the Toyota iQ has to be the way it's being marketed, but it has other downsides as well. For example, Toyota marketing advertises it as a 3+1 vehicle, when in fact only small children or amputees can properly fit in the rear, meaning the luggage compartment remains strictly for fitting a couple of rolled newspapers. We've seen glove compartments with more volume than the iQ's trunk. Plus, with the money payed for a well-specced iQ you can buy yourself medium-equipped compact car or even a smart fortwo by Brabus if you're a hardcore micro car fan.
The ugly bit in the Toyota iQ we tested is probably the Continuous Variable Transmission, which, beside taking all the pleasure away from driving such a tiny car is also killing the fuel economy in the city if you own a heavy right foot and hate leaving last from the stop light. Other than that, it does wonders for you personal comfort, especially at cruising speeds.
GUEST STAR EDITORS' OPINIONS AND RATINGS
| Sir May B. Bach strongly believes this car is worthy of a rating of 1 / 10 "I have to say I was a bit flattered when you offered me to drive this... ahem... car. It's not every day that I get to drive a future Aston Martin model that's not even... ahem... on the market yet, right? I actually never thought I would ever say this about an... ahem... effing Aston Martin, but it was quite a peculiar driving experience." Read more >> |
| Lou Cheeka knocked, knocked some more and finally shouted a rating of 3 / 10 "For the second time in my life I have to agree with the Bach dude. He's right in saying that this Toyota looks like elephant dung. Whoever designed it should probably go back to elementary school for designers, if such a thing even exists. My five-year old nephew can draw better caricatures of washing machine with wheels than that, and he has Down syndrome." Read more >> |
| Mary broke a nail, complained a bit and then gave a rating of 7 / 10 "OK, now my two neurons are really confused. There's a tiny car which makes you smart and another one which gives you IQ? Which one should I choose, they both sound like they would do wonders for my self esteem? Some people told me I have a low IQ, while others have called me stupid. Hmm, this could only mean I should change my car with one of these two..." Read more >> |
| Charles Darveight pondered gravely, nearly fell asleep and then submitted a rating of 5 / 10 "I've been confronting myself with a delicate problem for some time now. Vacuum cleaners. They brake in an alarming rate. I've tried multiple brands, models, every one of them was more powerful or more innovative... Anyway, after years of searching I finally found something to satisfy me. It no longer broke after a couple of laps through the living room and it sucks everything in its path." Read more >> |
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14.10.2009 | 09:04 GMT
Good city car! Too bad it's soooo expensive...
15.10.2009 | 13:45 GMT
very smart.
22.10.2009 | 16:04 GMT
There's no point in this car existing if it's not going to fare well in the city with an average driver behind the wheel. Just about everyone has a heavy foot once in a while and if that rare indulgence is going to cripple the car's long term fuel economy it is a fundamental flaw.
I gave it a 25 out of 100. For any real world and real city a decent sized motorcycle will carry two people and just as much stuff for a lot less money. That's with fuel economy, insurance, and upfront cost considered.
23.10.2009 | 15:23 GMT
Yuk...!
Expensive and horrid!
07.11.2009 | 19:06 GMT
I've driven one for some weeks it's a fine eco warrior vehicle although could be a bit prettier the manuel gearbox is very nice and the excessive price should keep the riff raff away xx