Toyota's FTEV might be aimed at car-sharing services
Click above for high-res gallery of the FT-EV
The iQ-based Toyota FT-EV that we saw in Detroit might one day replace all those golden bird and circuit stickers for ones that read Zipcar or Connect or even Better Place. According to the New York Times' Green Inc. blog, Toyota isn't planning on producing the FT-EV for "the conventional car market." Instead, car-sharing services could get first crack at the all-electric city car because they offer a way to regularly charge the car and provide a parking space to urban dwellers who might shun car ownership precisely because parking is such a PITA. Some residential communities that currently rely on golf carts or GEMs might also be good venues for the FT-EV, Toyota's Bob Reinert told the Times.
One other tidbit: the PHEV Prius might (repeat might) be officially called the "Prius Plug-in." That domain name is currently held by the Amberjac folks. Just so you know.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scatter 1:16PM (1/14/2009)
That makes a lot of sense.
Reply
Sasparilla 5:32PM (1/14/2009)
This begs the question as to why they don't want to sell to the general public. Still looking for experience with the platform (EV) would be my guess.
Reply
Mark 5:46PM (1/14/2009)
Maybe they want to make it impossible/very difficult for the general public to buy them, just so they can say that there's "No demand" for electric cars, like they did in the late 90's.