Toyota i-Road and COMS: The Possibilities of Car Sharing
A few years ago, Toyota summoned us to the Tokyo Auto Show and also invited us to several separate activities while we were in town—like a closed-circuit test drive of what was going to become the Toyota Mirai as well as the infamous and spectacular i?Road.
More recently, we had the good fortune of driving the i-Road again, this time in an urban setting near Grenoble, France. The program is called Cité Lib, an organized electric car sharing network that operates in association with Toyota and other partners. Not unlike Montreal’s Bixi bike-sharing system, you can rent either an i?Road two-seater or a COMS single-seater with trunk for 15-minute blocks. The two minicars have an operating range of 35 kilometres, which is sufficient for getting around in town.
In the end, the i-Road was the most fun. Careful though, you’ll need to take a little tutorial to be able to hit the streets with your three-wheeled vehicle. You have to adjust your driving style to the vehicle’s design, like anticipating corners by turning the wheel well before entering the corner—otherwise you’ll come out of the turn in the wrong lane. This change is caused by the driven wheel.
What’s more, parallel parking is a whole other ball game. In this case, it is preferable to park at a right angle or simply crosswise—both will make it easier to pull out later. With a top speed of 45 km/h, driving the i-Road in an urban setting is both simple and pleasant. Since the residents of Grenoble are now used to seeing them on the road, a certain degree of mutual respect has been established.
But some drivers still hesitated before passing us. When our i-Road veered into corners, some of drivers slowed down while those in the oncoming lane tended to move away from the middle of the road.
The pilot project seems to be working well thus far. The next goal is to grow the car sharing community. For now, there’s no plan to increase the number of cars available or to institute other networks elsewhere on the planet. So if you want to try this curious electric vehicle, you’ll have to do it in Japan or Grenoble. And if you do make it there, we suggest you do it: it’s a lot of fun.