Fans of light-weight small engined vehicles will like this! Toyota have released details of their new Belta:

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/05/1128.html

The 1.0 litre version weighs in at 990 kg and manages up to 51 mpg (US). No hybrid version as yet though.

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ecotech/ecot.htm

Canadians liked the Echo, and this will probably be no different. Unfortunately they probably won't bring the 1.0 liter version to north america, they should because for some people it's perfect!

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
'97 Prius Simulation Prius inner workings

Please note that the 51 mpg (US) is just converted from the Japanese 10-15 mode test result, 22 km/L.
We can't compare the Japanese number to the EPA number directly.
The 10-15 mode Prius number is 35.5 km/L.

Ken@Japan

Well someone at Toyota does not know their Italian!
Belta does not mean 'beautiful' or 'beautiful person', in fact, it does not mean anything. Bella instead, does mean just that - although it is female, so it could only mean a 'beautiful female' not a beautiful male (that would be Bello).
What a hoot!

she looks pretty good to me. Certainly prettier than the Echo. A little like the Hyundai Tiburon??

As Ken points out, the 51 MPG is tested on the Japanese protocol -- in which the Prius gets around 80, so I would expect mid 30's city EPA.

R2-E2, 2G Prius.
Highway/City/Husband/Wife MPG: 56.5, as of 12/2005, 26K miles

Jac Nasser, Ford President: "We are planning to launch a hybrid version of
this car [P2000] within this year [1998]. We will also make FCEV available in
2004."

For another 10-15 mode comparison, the Toyota Vitz lithium-ion stop-start subcompact gets 25.5 km/l (58 mpg US).

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/ecotech/ecot.htm

Does anyone know what the 1.5 liter Vitz was rated at on the Japanese 10-15 cycle, or what the 1.5 liter varients of our xA/xB are rated in the 10-15? That way we can compare to the US models, since we know:

2005 Echo 5-speed: 35 / 42
2005 Echo 4-Auto: 33 / 39
2006 Scion xA 5-speed: 32 / 37
2006 Scion xA 4-Auto: 31 / 38

The xB is significantly worse at 30/34, probably due to either aero or different gearing. Either way, I don't see it as being a good comparison against the Vitz/Belta, so I'm going to ignore it for now. I would think that the Belta would compre most closely against the Echo. The Echo came with a fixed cam 1.5 liter and the Belta has a VVT-i 1.0 and 1.3 liter.

At the very least, I'd think it would be somewhere around 38/44 for the 1.3 liter Belta on the US EPA tests. There's no chance we'd get a 1.0 liter car in the US. The Belta would probably be a good fit in the Scion lineup because then it goes along with their other tiny, affordable Scions and in theory, it doesn't compete with the Prius because that's a Toyota and the Belta could be sold as the Scion xS or something. I think it could easily sell 2-3000 units a month with the peppy, rev-happy 1.3 liter VVT-i engine and 38/44 fuel economy.

It looks like a good hybrid alternative for someone who supports resource conservation, but doesn't have $25k to spend on a car.

Of course, Big Oil will probably lobby the government to only allow a crippled version of the car (ie. engineering the exhaust system so that the car only gets 33 MPG.) the reason why I point out this possibility is that the Japanese versions of the Prius and Insight get a hell of a lot more gas mileage than their American counterparts.

The JDM Prius and HCH do not get better fuel economy than the US versions.