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Microvan

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A Daihatsu Hijet (ninth generation)
A Daihatsu Hijet (ninth generation)

A microvan is a van or minivan which is within the Japanese kei car classification or similar, and is smaller than a mini MPV. In China, these vehicles are nicknamed mian bao che ("bread-loaf vehicle") because of their shape.[1] Similarly, in several Hispanic American countries, these vehicles are called pan de molde, which means "bread loaf". In Indonesia, it is commonly called a minibus due to their tall roof, perceived as resembling a miniature bus; the term is also used generally to refer to any type of three-row MPVs.

Outside of China and Japan, microvans are also common in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Microvans share similar characteristics with other-sized MPVs; for instance, microvans commonly have rear sliding doors. Generally, they have capacity for six, seven, or eight passengers. As this category of vehicle has fixed third-row seats, a single vehicle cannot be used both for passenger transport and larger-cargo transport without refitting; therefore, microvans are not usually considered multi-purpose vehicles.

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Van

Van

A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or people in tiny quantities. Mini MPVs, compact MPVs, and MPVs are all small vans usually used for transporting people in small quantities. Larger vans with passenger seats are used for institutional purposes, such as transporting students. Larger vans with only front seats are often used for business purposes, to carry goods and equipment. Specially-equipped vans are used by television stations as mobile studios. Postal services and courier companies use large step vans to deliver packages.

Minivan

Minivan

Minivan is a car classification for vehicles designed to transport passengers in the rear seating row(s), with reconfigurable seats in two or three rows. The equivalent classification in Europe is MPV . In Southeast Asia, the equivalent classification is Asian Utility Vehicle (AUV).

Kei car

Kei car

Kei car, is the Japanese vehicle category for the smallest highway-legal passenger cars, with restricted dimensions and engine capacity. Similar Japanese categories exist for microvans, and kei trucks. These vehicles are most often the Japanese equivalent of the EU A-segment.

Mini MPV

Mini MPV

Mini MPV— an abbreviation for mini multi-purpose vehicle— is a vehicle size class for the smallest size of minivans/MPVs. The mini MPV size class sits below the compact MPV size class and the vehicles are often built on the platforms of B-segment hatchback models. By the European definition, the mini MPV commonly consists of cars with two rows of seats, while in Asia mini MPVs with three rows are common. Sliding doors are sometimes also fitted to mini MPVs. Mini MPV are also called tall-hatchback or small MPV.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. Timor-Leste and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only parts in Southeast Asia that are south of the Equator.

South Asia

South Asia

South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualised, South Asia consists of the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, with some neighbouring territories, such as Afghanistan, also sometimes included.

Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.

Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a cultural concept denoting the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in the nineteenth century, to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese and French empires. The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean." In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil. The term "Latin America" is broader than categories such as Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and Ibero-America, a term not generally used that specifically refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries while leaving French and British excolonies aside.

Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia, Asia Minor, East Thrace, Egypt, Iran, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Socotra Archipelago. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of Western Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.

Economics

Tax and insurance benefits in some locations make these models particularly inexpensive. For example, in rural Japan, kei-car vehicles are exempted from a certification that adequate parking is available for the vehicle.[2] They are, therefore, widely used for small businesses in these places.

Design

The first vehicle to adopt the bodystyle of a van, with the engine installed in front of the driver, was the 1970s Honda Life "StepVan". Some microvans use a drivetrain with the engine installed transversely, using front- or all-wheel drive, while others use a cabover approach where the engine is installed beneath the driver, while still using all-wheel or rear-wheel drive powertrains. Cabover variants usually share their chassis with kei truck derivatives from the same manufacturer.

Most microvans have two swinging front doors, two sliding rear doors and a large tailgate. Seating can vary from two to nine; these seats are usually very thin and vertical to optimise room. The side windows in commercial-only versions of microvans are replaced by metallic panels; this type of microvan is sometimes called a "blind van". Some models also feature pick-up variants with one or two seat rows. Engines usually have displacements under 1.0 L; for example, Japanese microvans have a limit of 660 cc. Outside the Japanese market, microvans are available with 850-cc to 1.6-L engines.

The kei car regulation is used only in Japan, though other Asian automakers also design microvans with similar characteristics. The microvans are commonly known as "kei one-box" in Japan; their pick-up versions are known as kei trucks.

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Safety

Due to their inherent compact size, lack of crumple zones, and low weight, these vehicles tend to fare poorly in collisions with other vehicles and objects, so are not recommended to be driven at higher speeds. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the United States recommends these vehicles only be driven on private land and not on public roads due to their poor safety in accidents.

Gallery

Kei microvans

Non-kei microvans

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Subaru Sambar

Subaru Sambar

The Subaru Sambar is a cabover truck and microvan manufactured and marketed by Subaru as Japan's first truck compliant with the country's strict Keitora (軽トラ) or Kei vehicle tax class. Introduced in 1961 in microvan and Kei pickup configurations, the Sambar remains in production, now in its eighth generation — beginning with the sixth generation as a rebadged Daihatsu Hijet.

Honda Acty

Honda Acty

The Honda Acty is a series of cabover microvans and kei trucks produced by the Japanese automaker Honda from 1977 to 2021, designed for the Japanese domestic market (JDM). "Acty" is short for "Activity".

Mitsubishi Minicab

Mitsubishi Minicab

The Mitsubishi Minicab is a kei truck and microvan, built and sold in Japan by Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors since 1966. In Japan, it was sold at a specific retail chain called Galant Shop. It was also sold by China Motor Corporation (CMC) in Taiwan as the CMC Veryca, starting in 1985. A battery electric model of the Minicab, called the Minicab MiEV, is sold in the Japanese market since December 2011.

Food truck

Food truck

A food truck is a large motorized vehicle or trailer, equipped to cook, prepare, serve, and/or sell food. Some, including ice cream trucks, sell frozen or prepackaged food; others have on-board kitchens and prepare food from scratch, or they heat up food that was prepared in a brick and mortar commercial kitchen. Sandwiches, hamburgers, french fries, and other regional fast food fare is common. By the early 2010s, amid the pop-up restaurant phenomenon, food trucks offering gourmet cuisine and a variety of specialties and ethnic menus became particularly popular. Food trucks may also sell cold beverages such as soda pop and water. Food trucks, along with food booths and food carts, are major components of the street food industry that serves an estimated 2.5 billion people every day.

Maruti Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki India Limited, formerly known as Maruti Udyog Limited, is an Indian automobile manufacturer, based in New Delhi. It was founded in 1981 and owned by the Government of India until 2003, when it was sold to the Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corporation. As of September 2022 Maruti Suzuki has a market share of 42 percent in the Indian passenger car market.

Suzuki Carry

Suzuki Carry

The Suzuki Carry is a kei truck produced by the Japanese automaker Suzuki. The microvan version was originally called the Carry van until 1982 when the passenger van versions were renamed as the Suzuki Every . In Japan, the Carry and Every are kei cars but the Suzuki Every Plus, the bigger version of Every, had a longer bonnet for safety purposes and a larger 1.3-liter 86-hp (63 kW) four-cylinder engine. They have been sold under myriad different names in several countries, including those with Chevrolet and Ford badges.

Perodua Rusa

Perodua Rusa

The Perodua Rusa is a cab over microvan manufactured by the Malaysian automaker Perodua between 1996 and 2007, and based on the Daihatsu Zebra. Launched on March 6, 1996, the Rusa is the first van model to be produced by a Malaysian automotive company. The original model received a 1.3-litre engine, followed by the 1.6-litre model on 14 May 1997.

Subaru Sumo

Subaru Sumo

The Subaru Sumo, known as the Libero in European markets except the UK, Iceland, and Sweden, and as the Domingo in the Japanese market, is a cabover microvan produced from 1983 to 1998. In Belgium, it was known as the Combi, and in Taiwan the latter generation was marketed as the Estratto. It was also called the Subaru E10 and Subaru E12 respectively in some places, the names referring to the size of the engines. The Sumo shared many characteristics with the Sambar, except it had extended front and rear bumpers and a larger engine borrowed from the Subaru Justy. Because of these modifications, it didn't conform to kei car regulations, which stipulate the maximum dimensions of the vehicle and the maximum engine displacement requirements, which then determine the vehicle tax to be paid.

Mitsubishi Town Box

Mitsubishi Town Box

The Mitsubishi Town Box is a kei car and minivan produced for the Japanese domestic market (JDM) by the Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors. It was initially available with the alloy-headed 4A30 657 cc inline-four engine, but switched to the 3G83 659 cc straight-three engine in 2002. In August 2001, a slightly larger version of the same vehicle powered by a 4A31 1.1 L straight-four, the Mitsubishi Town Box Wide, was discontinued. The first generation Town Box was discontinued in November 2011, ending the twelve-year production run. The model returned in February 2014 as a rebadged version of the Suzuki Every Wagon.

Wuling Sunshine

Wuling Sunshine

The Wuling Sunshine is a five- to eight-seater Microvan made by SGMW (SAIC-GM-Wuling), a Chinese joint venture of SAIC with Liuzhou Wuling Motors Co and the U.S. carmaker General Motors.

Source: "Microvan", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, February 22nd), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microvan.

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References
  1. ^ Chinese Hero Cars: The Mian Bao Che Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine - China Car Times
  2. ^ Nunn, Peter (January–February 2005). "Minicars: Cheap and Cheerful". JAMA. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
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