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.