Smart ForTwo 2012 Overview
The car fairies come to visit me this week as I sleep in Stuttgart, not far from the birthplace of the car over 125 years ago. As I fall asleep, they wave fairy dust over the Smart ForTwo I parked in the hotel garage. Or so it seems.
As I hop back into the tiny Smart, preparing to fight commuter traffic on my way to the Daimler hub out of town, I look down at the fuel gauge and am stunned for a second to see that it is magically on track again. Select all.
I don't remember the gas station. But then I remember that this is not just an ordinary Smart and I had better unplug its electrical cord before choosing Drive.
VALUE
This vehicle is a Smart ForTwo Electric Drive and is part of an evaluation fleet of over 1000 vehicles with miles and experience across Europe. The first vehicles hit the road in London in 2007, followed by vehicles in a number of major cities such as the Netherlands and a base in Germany.
The Smart plug-in is now in its second generation, with a third coming later this year, and Daimler says production has topped 2000 vehicles for destinations in 18 countries. The first real electric car from the Daimler family is promised to be presented in Australia, but the final details - the date of sale and the decisive price - are still unknown.
“He is in the evaluation stage. Initially, we are going to bring a small number of vehicles to try out in our driving conditions,” says David McCarthy, spokesman for Mercedes-Benz.
“The big stumbling block at the moment is the price. It will probably be around $30,000. It will be at least a 50% surcharge on a petrol car.”
But what is known is that if the owners do not have a solar panel on the roof, the vast majority of these Smarts will run on coal electricity, and this is not so smart. However, Benz is pushing ahead with a potential plan that would make it the third all-electric car in Australia, behind the tiny and diminutive Mitsubishi iMiEV and the impressive Nissan Leaf.
“Hopefully next month or so we will have a decision. We have some interest, but we intentionally didn't talk about it until we had driven the car in local conditions," says McCarthy.
TECHNOLOGY
ForTwo is the ideal object for electrification. In fact, when the tiny city car was born in the 1980s — like the Swatchmobile, the idea of Swatch boss Nicholas Hayek — it was originally conceived as a plug-in battery car.
That all changed, and by the time it hit the road in 1998, it had switched to petrol, and today's ForTwo is still powered by a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine in the tail that produces 52 kilowatts with a claimed economy of 4.7 liters per 100 km. .
Upgrading to the latest ED package puts a Tesla-derived lithium-ion power pack into the car, along with an electric motor of 20kW continuous and 30kW at peak. The maximum speed is 100 km / h, acceleration to 6.5 km / h takes 60 seconds, and the power reserve is 100 kilometers.
But when the ED3 arrives this year, the new battery and other changes will mean 35kW – and 50 petrol rivals on the handle – 120km/h top speed, 0-60km/h in five seconds and a range of over 135km.
Design
The design of SmartTwo is the same as always - short, squat and very different. That difference didn't work out in Australia, where parking isn't as expensive as in Paris, London, or Rome. But some like the idea of a two-seater city runabout, and the Smart offers a unique look.
The Smart ED - for Electric Drive - features alloy wheels and is well-equipped in the cabin, with two gauges on the dash - they stick out like a crab's eyes - to measure battery life and current power consumption. The plug cable is well integrated into the lower half of the rear hatch, which is split by a top glass for easy access, and the plug is tucked away where the fuel filler would normally be.
SECURITY
The latest Smart got four stars in Europe, but it's not ED. So it's hard to say exactly how it will behave, despite the fact that Daimler promises that it will be as good as a regular car.
As you'd expect, it comes with ESP and ABS, and safety has always been a priority - with massive changes to everything from suspension to weight balancing before the first car was even sold. But it's still a tiny car, and you wouldn't want to be on the receiving end if someone at the Toyota LandCruiser made a mistake.
DRIVING
I've ridden a lot of EVs and the Smart ED is one of the prettiest and most suitable for city running. It will never rival the Falcon for light output or the payload capacity of the Commodore, but it meets the needs of many people who are now even considering scooters for downtown work and travel.
The Smart seems much, much more reliable than the iMiEV, while the price easily undercuts the Leaf. But there are a lot of buts.
Any Smart car makes a lot of sense in Europe, where roads are crowded and parking lots are tight, and an electric car is even smarter because it has zero emissions while driving. But even the worst traffic in Sydney and Melbourne can't compare to Paris during rush hours.
Smart ED is also slow. So slow. It's fine and fine up to about 50 km/h, but then it struggles to gain speed and tops out at 101 km/h as measured by the GPS.
I didn't drive as late as my original 1959 Volkswagen Beetle, which means you have to think all the time about keeping up speed and staying away from faster traffic. Smart is good on the highway, but hills are a problem and you really need to keep an eye on your mirrors.
However, it's a fun car. And a very green car. It also feels more solid than I remember from earlier ForTwo runs, rides well, has good brakes and handling for the car's size and pace.
The electrical systems are completely unobtrusive and cause little to no fuss - although the plug-in cable can get dirty if you don't have a closed garage or charging space. My German car comes without on-board satellite navigation, which should be standard to help find charging points.
And that's the only question left. Connecting Smart ED to a regular outlet is very simple, and charging overnight is not a problem, but there are still doubts about the range.
The car easily travels 80 kilometers across Germany despite a lot of work at full throttle, with the dial still showing half the charge of the 16-kilowatt-hour battery, and a visit from the fairy means that it is ready to drive more than 80 kilometers the next morning. It's hard to tell until I get the Smart ED home, but it's a car I like and - even at $32,000 - it could be a good thing for Australia.
VERDICT
A great way to move around Europe with the possibility of reliable support at the bottom.
At a glance
Goal: 7/10
Smart electric drive
Cost: estimated at $32-35,000
Engine: AC synchronous permanent magnet
Transmission: one speed, rear wheel drive
Body: two-door coupe
Body: 2.69 m (D); 1.55 m (w); 1.45 (h)
The weight: 975kg
