Fiat to go micro in 2009 and green by 2012

In an interview last week with Automotive News Europe, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne mentioned that the company is hoping to sell its first microcar by 2009. It's a "true beauty," said Marchionne. We can speculate that it might look quite a bit like the concept microcar that Fiat presented to the world in 2005, pictured here. Perhaps they can call it the "Piccolo" (italian for small), but more likely it will end up being a variation on the Panda, their current (slightly ugly) almost-micro car.

Fiat has been having great success with its updated version of the Fiat 500, the Fiat Nuova 500; it's selling very briskly in Europe and is garnering many awards, including the prestigious EuroCarBody 2007 and the European Car of the Year 2008. It would appear that this success is giving Fiat confidence to go even smaller... Roughly 30 centimeters smaller to be precise (to get into the microcar category).

In the same interview, Marchionne asserted that "Fiat will be the carmaker with the lowest average emissions in 2012," and that they "do not need hybrids to get there." To all the hybrid devotees out there (yes, it almost seems like a religion these days), this must sound scandalous. But it's actually quite simple; going with increasingly smaller cars is likely the way they are going to achieve this goal. Perhaps he was reading my post from March...

The spectrum of microcars

What is a microcar? The small car of small cars. A commonly used definition is that it's an automobile less than 3 meters in length (for example, the Smart Fortwo qualifies, coming in at only 2.5 meters). The number of wheels is not just limited to 4, but could be 3. In Japan, there is a whole class of microcars, called Kei cars (or K-cars), which are defined by their small engine size (less than 650 cubic centimeters displacement).

From www.moonbeamplans.com:

It's a sort of half-car, which fits into your life as an addition to another car, or to public transportation, which will meet your long-range and high speed travel needs. This limitation of a microcar gives it a bad rap. We immediately compare it to a multi-purpose full size car in terms of highway performance, passenger capacity and comfort, etc., and then don't take it seriously.

Indeed, to compare microcars to larger types is not fair. A true microcar is best suited for short trips within the city (limited acceleration, low speed, tight parking spaces), but not for highway commutes or long trips.

But then there are microcars, like the Smarts, which are being marketed as primary vehicles. They can get up to well beyond the legal highway speed limits, and have longer ranges between refueling. I suppose, for their price (the Smart Fortwo starts at $16,700 CDN), they better be able to serve as primary transportation workhorse.

If you want a cheap microcar, for now the only option in North America seems to be building your own. Check out Jory Squibb's Moonbeam car; he's put up some general instructions and photos on his web site. Since it's based on a scooter (in Squibb's case, an old Honda Elite), maybe you could enlist the help of a local scooter gearhead to build it with you.