- Some models have experienced in recent years spectacular failures, including two Asian models that were meant to revolutionise the market for small cars and were promised a wide distribution: the Tata Nano and Toyota IQ.

- The Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world, should have motorized the masses in India where car ownership is still very low. Thus the Indian manufacturer was initially expecting 250 000 annual sales of the Nano, and ultimately 500 000 unit par year in the future.

- Three years after its commercial launch in 2012, the Tata Nano reached with great difficulty its sales peak at nearly 80 000 units. Then 2013 was the year the sales of the model fell. Less than 20 000 units were sold last year. The lifecycle of Nano seems compromised and even domed, only five years after its launch.

- The Toyota IQ in turn should have represented  the city car of the future, thanks to an ultra-short body and pieces of equipment worthy of an upper category car. This classy little car wasn’t competing with the Nano as it was marketed for a more wealthy clientele, to the type of consumer which bought the Smart Fortwo. Intended to be sold as much as the Smart, ie. 100 000 annual units, it painfully reached 60 000 units in 2009 before falling inescapably into very small quantities: 22 000 in 2010, 19 000 in 2011, 18 000 in 2012 going as low as 6 000 in 2013. While the Smart Fortwo continues to sell 100 000 copies a year, the Toyota IQ will probably have to be removed from the catalogue in 2014.