The small car derived van market is alive and well with new elements of style and competition to keep buyers interested. Toyota has recently launched the van version of the Auris hatchback to the market. Can it compete? Michael Moroney has driven it and gives his assessment.

Small businesses around the country are big buyers of small vans. The competition in the sector, lead by sales of large numbers of car-derived vans, is hot and heavy.

Toyota has a new Auris van based on the three-door car. The Auris van has style and good safety features, but it's pricey relative to what are some keen competitors.

Car-derived vans offer the style and comfort of a standard car in many cases with the bonus of extra load space and taxation benefits. And the car-derived van doesn't look out of place outside the door of many houses in the same way that a more commercial looking van might.

These are among the good reasons why small businesses in Ireland make their van choice. And Toyota has made a fresh attach on the market with its van based on the Auris hatchback.

The van treatment is done locally here in Ireland, to give a comfortable two-seat van with a flat loading area finished with a relatively low bulkhead rim. The rear windows are blackened out to preserve the van look and provide some element of goods security.

The van is based on the successful Auris three-door car. The Auris has a good safety report, having come through the EuroNCAP testing programme with a maximum five star rating. Toyota fit nine airbags to the Auris van, including a driver's knee airbag. The Auris is fitted with a collapsible steering column as a further driver safety aid.

Its safety, comfort and reliability credentials are intact. The Auris pedigree based on the Corolla hatchback is solid. So can it compare in other respects?

The new Toyota Auris 1.4 D4D van comes with a 1.4 litre turbo-diesel engine that's lively. The relatively small engine develops 90bhp topped off by an impressive 190Nm of torque. So while the engine power may not be the highest in the sector, it has loads of torque and that's the stuff to boost acceleration. But is it enough?

The Auris commercial can achieve an acceleration figure of 12 seconds in a 0 to 100km/hr race. While that's a good van performance, the competitors are watching! The Ford Focus, Kia c'eed and Volkswagen Golf all do marginally better in acceleration terms.

The overall economy figures for the Auris are reasonably good. The official rating is five litres/100km (57mpg), which is good but not the best in the way that we have come to expect from Toyota.

And nowadays we have to consider the all-important CO2 rating. The Auris van comes with a rating of 132g/km. That's higher than the competition and only the Opel Astra van, with its 1.3 litre turbo-diesel engine, comes with a higher CO2 output figure.