A few years ago, Smart firmly chose the electric track. However, this was not a bed of roses. Although the brand appears to be made for electric vehicles, the electric versions of the ForTwo and ForFour suffered from a limited range, which didn’t help their popularity. But the brand is now facing a renaissance, still under the wings of Mercedes, but in a joint venture with the Chinese Geely Group. Does the brand create a profile The best of both worlds Or is it even charting its own course? We went to Berlin to find out.
#1, this is what the first new generation smart will be called. By the way, you pronounce it as “one hashtag”, not “number one”. Over time, this will of course follow #2, 3, etc., but for now Smart is focusing on this explicitly designed model. One that largely breaks the traditions of the past. #1 is after all a cross, and even one would look like a higher cross. After all, the dimensions of the car are about 4 meters by 27, which is 80 centimeters more than the smart ForFour, which means that it enters the lane of the MINI Countryman.
Smart makes us dizzy with the numbers: 272 hp on the rear axle, 66 kWh battery, good for a driving range of about 420 km, fast charging at 150 kW, charging at only 22, you can go home with that! But the car also does particularly well in terms of space. The 1m96 was really able to sit in the back seat without any problem, even when the front seat was at its height. The bag only (272 liters, 323 if you count the space at the bottom) is rather small and does not follow comfortably. Additionally, the prominent C-pillars – which keep the roof elevated to provide excellent headroom – limit visibility diagonally to the rear.
Information, entertainment or video game?
The interior finish is elegant, in keeping with what we’re accustomed to from big brother Mercedes, thanks to clever use of materials, a Bose audio system, comfortable leather seats and stylish interior lighting in 64 colours. Choice pressure guaranteed!
However, the 12.3-inch infotainment screen doesn’t work on software from Mercedes, nor on Android that we know from Google. No, there we see our own visually designed system in a way we’ve never seen before! Where most brands opt for a rather boring visual design, here we get colorful graphics that seem to come straight from a video game! With the colorful fox as your travel companion and all the communication you want (also for car sharing), Smart has created a very cool package.
The car as a smartphone on wheels: in the smart they can say they succeeded. The originator returns with a bang. It seems to us that the only elephant in the room is the price: with such impressive numbers in terms of battery and charging, the price will certainly not be the lowest. Although we will have to wait until September before we get an answer to this question.
We’ve had answers to all of our other questions from CEO Dirk Adelman. You can read the interview with him next week on our website!
Smart Pictures #1
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