#MicroCars

Scion has announced a bargain $99 per month lease rate for its iQ mini car, hoping to boost deliveries as competition in the segment grows with Chevrolet’s recently released Spark off to a strong start.

In 1989, Rick Moranis played a nerdy dad who accidentally downsized his children to an insect scale in Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. He probably wouldn’t have believed it if someone told him that 23 years later automakers would be doing the same thing to their cars.

Jon Sibal is one of the premier automotive digital artists out there, and from time to time he likes to have a little bit of fun with Photoshop making some awesome micro car renders. This time around, Sibal stuck to a theme of Rauh Welt-built cars. Rauh Welt Begriff, RWB, is a Porsche tuner located in Japan and loves to combine both Japanese and Euro tuning elements, creating some of the most distinct-looking Porsches in the world.

The brain child of Ratan Tata, head of India’s massive conglomerate, the Nano, billed as the ‘world’s most affordable car,’ has never been far from controversy.

Not long after Gordon Murray’s McLaren F1 was feted at the company’s headquarters, new details have emerged about Murray’s all-new T27 city car, being developed by the South African-born engineer independently of McLaren.

Tata unveiled a new electric version of its Nano at the Geneva Auto Show. The Nano EV joins the Indica Vista EV in Tata’s electric line-up.

Debuting alongside the 170mpg L1 concept car at the Frankfurt Auto Show was the zero-emissions E-Up! concept. As the name suggests, this is a pure electric vehicle and it is based on a chassis that will form the basis of a new line of VW city cars starting in 2013.

Toyota appears to be readying a convertible version of the iQ minicar that is currently on sale in Japan and Europe. The report comes from Japan’s Best Car magazine, which suggests much of the basics will be kept including a 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine that makes 99hp and 92 ft-lbs of torque. Fuel-economy for this engine is rated an an average of 51 mpg – although Toyota offers even smaller and more fuel-efficient powerplants including a 1.0-liter four-cylinder and a 1.4-liter turbodiesel.

Indian automaker Tata has confirmed that it will bring the Nano to the U.S. in the next three years. The Nano, launched officially several months ago in India, holds the title of being the world’s cheapest car with base models priced at just $2,000.

Mitsubishi has just revealed the production model of its i-MiEV electric car in Japan and it plans to have models on the road by July. Initial sales of 1,400 vehicles will be to government entities with public sales starting in April of 2010.

Well, here’s an exciting follow-up to yesterday’s story about the launch of the new Tata Nano in India; Tata is looking to bring the $2,000 Nano to the U.S.