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Toyota puts three-wheeled i-Road into public tests in Japan [w/video]

The lucky citizens of Japan are getting it now, and some folks in France will join the fray later this year, but that's about it for public, leaning-trike fun. The car in question is Toyota's three-wheeled i-Road concept electric vehicle. And in addition to being really narrow and quite environmentally friendly, this little EV leans quite a bit when it scoots around curves. Earlier this week, the Japanese automaker started testing the super-narrow vehicles in Toyota City, Japan. They're part of a broader scheme called "Ha:mo" in which people can link shared vehicles with public transportation systems to get around with minimal environmental impact. Grenoble, France, will be the recipient of some i-Road EVs for a vehicle-sharing project that starts later this year. The i-Road weigh about 660 pounds, is less than a yard wide and has a 28 mile per hour top speed. The i-Road was first shown off at the Geneva Motor Show early last year and shortly thereafter was the subject of a groovy video that showed a group of four cruising and leaning through the streets of a Mediterranean village in France. Check out Toyota's video on the vehicle-testing program and the official press release below and read our driving impressions here. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Changing Mobility and Lives, Three Wheels at a Time Residents of Toyota City, Japan, might be wondering what they just saw on the street. If it had three wheels and was leaning around a corner, it was the "i-Road", Toyota's ultra-compact all-electric, all-fun concept. On Sunday, the i-Road, which weighs a mere 300 kg and is less than 90 cm wide, was let loose on public roads at an event to mark its introduction into "Ha:mo", Toyota's optimized urban transport system. Soon, even more i-Roads will be zooming around Toyota city when they are made available to residents at vehicle-sharing stations. And later this year the lucky residents of Grenoble, France, will also be able to have some three-wheeled fun, thanks to a vehicle-sharing project that will last until 2017. Besides being an absolute blast to drive, how could the i-Road actually help you out? Well, picture the following: You just got off work. You get a phone call. You need to get across town, pronto, because your wife just went into labor. But your car is in the shop, there's no time to call a taxi, and your co-workers with cars are stuck doing overtime.

Toyota i-ROAD leans its way into the city [w/video]

According to Toyota, the "i-ROAD takes the company closer to its goal of creating the ultimate range of eco cars." As you're surely aware, that range of eco cars includes the enormously successful Prius family, but this new machine is nothing like the hybrid hatchback. And it's not even a car - Toyota calls the i-ROAD a Personal Mobility Vehicle.
Toyota's i-ROAD Concept, which debuts at this week's Geneva Motor Show, is adorned with just three wheels, meaning it's just as much a motorcycle as it is a car, and the driver and passenger sit in tandem style instead of side-by-side. This arrangement allows for a very thin 850mm width, which is about the same as a large motorcycle. Because the cockpit is enclosed, the occupants don't need helmets, nor are they open to the elements outside.
Also like a traditional two-wheeler, the i-ROAD tilts through the turns and when driving on uneven surfaces. Toyota says its computer-controlled Active Lean technology automatically balances the vehicle with no input from the driver.

Scion rules out roadster, turbo versions of FR-S

Ever since Toyota and Subaru released the sports car alternatively known as the GT86, 86, BRZ and Scion FR-S a couple of years ago, rumors have circulated that even more exciting variants could be in store. But at least as far as Scion is concerned, those rumors are apparently nothing more than wishful thinking. Speaking with WardsAuto at the LA Auto Show last week, Scion chief Doug Murtha said that the prospect of an FR-S roadster has been taken off the table entirely. Apparently Scion lobbied parent company Toyota to produce just such a model, but after failing to find other markets interested enough in the model to put it into production, corporate HQ said no. "I think we were pretty aggressive on our (submitted plan), but we looked at what we would have conceivably lost on the product and said, 'We're not going to even push it further,'" Murtha said, going on to note, "Nobody was more disappointed than we were." Murtha further shot down the idea of a turbo version of the FR-S, dismissing it as a prospect the blogosphere (that's us) wanted to happen but "that's not something that's coming." Either variant might have helped Scion and Toyota boost sales of the model (which are predictably dropping after their first two years on the market), but the investment also might not have paid off their development, tooling and marketing costs. Of course, Murtha can only speak for Toyota, but we'd be surprised to see Subaru go it alone on either model, as costs would be that much more prohibitive without a partner. Bummer.