Toyota I Q

Toyota I Q

The Toyota iQ is a city car first shown to the public at the March 2008 Geneva Auto Show, with Japanese sales having begun in October 2008 and European sales in January 2009. The production iQ followed a concept vehicle presented at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show. A North American version of the iQ, branded as the Scion iQ, was released in the U.S. beginning in October 2011 with the West Coast states and Canada in 2012. Deliveries of an all-electric version with a range of 80 km (50 mi) began in the U.S. in March 2013. Production of the Scion iQ EV (Toyota eQ in Japan) will be limited to 100 units for special fleet use in Japan and carsharing demonstration projects in the U.S.

The name iQ, an initialism of the term intelligence quotient, recalls a competitor, the Smart Fortwo. According to Toyota, the i stands for "individuality" "innovation" and "intelligence", while the Q stands for "quality" and points to the iQ's "cubic" shape. It was Japanese Car of the Year for 2008. While the length is in compliance with Japanese government dimension regulations for cars classified as kei car, the width and the engine size are not, and therefore it is defined as a supermini.

The iQ was designed at the Toyota European Design and Development (Toyota ED2) studio in Nice, France.