As the automotive market adopts the commitment to develop environmentally friendly modes of transportation, vehicles are increasingly being designed for specific niches and their particular needs.
Throughout 2019, a handful of extremely compact electric vehicles and concepts – Citroen’s Ami One, Seat’s Minimo, Nissan’s IMk, and Honda’s Urban EV – have been announced with the nearly-exclusive purpose of being used in strictly urban environments.
On Thursday, Toyota, too, revealed their own rendition of the teeny-weeny city vehicle: The Ultra-compact BEV (right).
And it is already one up on the other cars in this particular segment – this EV is not a concept; it’s production ready and truth be told, it is expected to launch in Japan in 2020.
I read that the two-seater has a single-charge range of about 100 km and a top speed of 60km/h (or 37mph).
This car is not designed for performance – instead, Toyota intend for it to be used by customers who make short-distance trips like “the elderly, newly licensed drivers, or business-people visiting local customers”.
Though the technical specs of the model have not been released, Toyota’s Head of Development Akihiro Yanaka states that this model will provide customers with “greater autonomy”.
The Ultra-compact BEV will be on display at the Tokyo Motor Show (October 24 to November 04) at the Future Expo.
Yesterday, I was at the MIDA premise in KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur to attend the KL Advanced Toastmasters meeting. I was both an assignment speaker as well as a speech evaluator.
My speech was from the Humorously Speaking manual, project #2 Leave Them With a Smile and it was titled The Day My Best Friend Died
‘Twas a speech that contained dark humor – and it was about Bernard.
BTW, I was voted Best Evaluator for my feedback for an Ice-breaker speech:
Photos from the said meeting:
