While Toyota has played it careful with the electrification market, they’re still investing in the idea of EVs. The brand even announced their first fully electric, battery powered car, the C+Pod minicar.

The C+Pod is a big difference from the automaker’s usual style in North America. In the States, the brand is known for mid-sized sedans and their line of pick up trucks and other heavy duty vehicles. The C+Pod, on the other hand, is a tremendously small and modestly-powered vehicle. But that’s likely because the vehicle isn’t announced for America. The C+Pod EV was revealed for Japan.

Almost everything about the vehicle will be modest, really. Releasing to the public in 2022, the C+Pod will be priced at 1.65 million yen, the equivalent of about $16k USD. It comes with a single, rear-mounted electric motor with 12 horsepower. The car has an estimated top speed of 37mph, and the 9.06-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery won’t be capable of more than 90 miles of range.

Though for what it's worth, there is a power take off, allowing users to pull a continuous 1,500 watts for external use. This makes it good as an emergency power supply or other such uses.

The total two-seater is only 98 inches long and less than 1,500 pounds in weight. Despite the small size, it still offers everything a modern vehicle needs, like heated seats and a digital instrument cluster.

While this initially seems like a strange way to start with EVs for Toyota, it makes sense on a second consideration. The brand is Japan-based, the country is much more welcoming to modern technologies like EVs, and the smaller, more compact towns and roads make it a more suitable location for a low speed, small vehicle. If you’re a company skeptical about investing in EVs, making something like this for a country like that seems like the best choice.

We could imagine it also doing well in certain parts of America, namely the more progressive and urban locations like California and New York. The very affordable price point is a big factor in that. This would be a fantastic entry-level EV for those areas.

This is all assuming they bring it to the States at all, that is.