Toyota i-Road 2013 Review - International

Is it a car? Is is a scooter? Is it a tricycle? Whatever the Toyota i-Road is, there is a chance it will come to Australia, so you can find out for yourself.

The i-Road was first shown at the Geneva motor show last March and appeared again at last week’s Tokyo motor show as Toyota’s vision of a simple, efficient transporter for the world’s ever-more congested cities.

While still dubbed as a concept, it starts trials at experimental ‘green’ town sites in Toyota City Japan and Grenoble, France next year.

But development of the i-Road is far enough along that motoring.com.au was among the first group of journalists to get a brief drive last week at the Fujioka Aisin test track near Toyota City.

The three-wheel electric vehicle proved simple, fun and enjoyably different to drive. It’s something Toyota Australia spokesman Steve Coughlan says the company is noting.

“I don’t think any journalist from any country got out of the thing without a smile on their face today and that is a positive sign for us,” he said.

“The whole premise is a vehicle to be used in communal sorts of situations and it’s basically a vehicle people can use in short trips to and from the city.

“We don’t have any immediate plan for it in Australia but it is something we would love to bring out and evaluate. It is something we would really like to trial.

“The biggest challenge we have is getting our hands on some because the trial at the moment is limited to Japan and Grenoble in France. The big challenge is where does it fit in terms of registration? Is it something for the road, something for the footpath, something for a dedicated lane?

“All of those are the sorts of things are issues that need to be nutted out with local authorities before we can consider it,” he concluded.

We hope Toyota does figure it all out, because while classifying the i-Road might be a complex task, driving it is not.

It really is a case of get in via the car-like door, adjust the seat, clip-in the lap-sash seatbelt, turn it on, punch the Drive button (there's also Reverse and Neutral), release the foot park brake, pressing the orthodox accelerator pedal and go. You stop by using an equally orthodox brake pedal.

Response from the two electric motors mounted in the front wheels is brisk. The combination of motor and road noise is unsurprisingly intrusive. The braking system is regenerative and the lithium-ion battery offers a 50km range at an average 30km/h speed. A full plug-in recharge takes three hours.

The big deal is the way it turns. Dubbed Active Lean, the system uses a lean actuator and gearing mounted above the front suspension member, linked via a yoke to the left and right front wheels and a steering jockey wheel at the rear.

An ECU calculates the required degree of lean based on steering angle, gyro-sensor and vehicle speed information, with the system automatically moving the wheels up and down in opposite directions, applying lean angle to counteract the centrifugal force of cornering.

Although you steer via a conventional steering wheel, albeit operating via drive-by-wire, the i-Road feels weird at first in the way the whole body tilts over. A couple of tilts later and you're giggling like a six-year old.

It’s like a motorcycle, only you don't actively lean your body and you are encased in a roofed cockpit that makes it feel like a fighter plane.

Driving the i-Road across an angled surface really made it clear how affective this idea is, as the body stayed flat while the wheels did all the leaning.

We were allowed just three minutes to sample the i-Road on a short bitumen test route. Performing figure eights and direction changes around a series of cones it felt stable yet highly manoeuvrable. Steering aggression was limited by a sensor which also prompted warning vibrations to shudder through the wheel.

The two seats -- one behind the other just like the four-wheel Renault Twizy ZE -- version we sampled was limited to 45km/h, reflecting the upper speed limit for un-licensed European drivers. In Japan, where a driving licence will be required, it has a top speed limit of 60km/h, but the passenger seat is removed.

The good thing about losing one seat would be increased storage, because there is very little right now. Production versions are likely to get door pockets.

But then you’re never going to fit too much luggage in a vehicle this size; vital measurements of 2350mm long, 1445mm high and just 870mm wide. That’s narrower than a large capacity motorbike and short enough so you could fit four i-Road’s in the same road or parking space as one small car. Turning circle is just three metres. Current claimed kerb weight is just 300kg.

Being so compact is also going to be a challenge for safety, because it will lose out in impacts with larger vehicles. You can argue it’s safer than a motorcycle or scooter because of the full body. Toyota admits it is currently investigating whether airbags will be part of the i-Road package.

There’s not much in the way of equipment. The windows and doors close via straps and the windows stay up via magnets. There is a USB socket, but no air-conditioning.

It’s easy to see it working as part of a ride-share arrangement or for people whose inner city lifestyles don’t merit full-time ownership of a car. It is also a vehicle, says Toyota, with which it wants to encourage the youth of the western world to fall in love with motorised transport -- something many are definitely not doing at the moment.

The i-Road is certainly capable of that. But it also has the potential to appeal not only to the young but the young at heart too.