Smart
The Smart Car is back! After all the teases and test shots from the Geely-Mercedes collaboration, the company finally revealed its production-spec #2 compact EV at the Paris Motor Show. (That's pronounced "hashtag two," obviously. It looks very close to the concept from early this year, a little puffer fish of a car with soft edges and angry-eye headlights, and it's exactly the EV we should all be driving. The world would be a better place with a million of these on the roads.
The #2 is styled by Mercedes-Benz, and the designers really kept things true to the original with this new version. The #2 may not have the Fortwo's manic smile and impish eyes, but styling elements like the roof shape and the car's overall proportions harken back to the little runabout of old. Even the Fortwo's split tailgate, a feature now usually reserved for big SUVs, makes a return here on the #2. Between the styling elements and the Paris reveal, Smart is drawing a clear link between this new #2 and the Fortwo that the company revealed at the Louvre all those years ago.
The splitgate is back!
Smart
That split gate is flanked by rounded rail lights that point in towards the center, directing drivers' vision to the part of the car they're meant to use for sitting. Smart actually recommends the split gate for such a use case, saying it can hold up to 264 pounds, but that's only at a standstill — no dynamic loading of the splitgate, kids. It's not a pickup truck, after all.
Smart
Inside, the production #2 features the bench front seat of the concept, though the middle section is very narrow and doesn't appear to have a seatbelt — it's just there for looks, apparently, and to hold an armrest and cup holder. The folks at Smart are cowards for this, and that middle seat should have a belt for hauling a second friend through your local city. Doesn't that seem like a good time? There isn't even a shifter to get tangled in their legs. At least put the two seats right up against each other!
There's a slim pill-shape digital gauge cluster and a pretty big center touchscreen, with a handful of physical controls and some really prominent round air vents. The design of the steering wheel buttons is quite cool, and just look at the fab circular door panels and huge handles.
Couture
Smart
Smart also revealed the car's Couture Edition, which is limited to just 999 units each in Europe and China. The Couture is only available in white, which makes the gold detailing on the pillars, wheels, and body accents really pop. It also has a design element on the grille that looks like straps on luxury luggage, an aesthetic choice so dumb and absurd that I have no choice but to love it and champion it until my dying breath.
Smart
Smart released a fair number of details about the car, from its 108-inch body length (shorter than even a first-generation Mazda Miata, and only a couple inches longer than the most recent Fortwo generation) to its rear-mounted 80-horsepower motor that puts 96 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels. The car will hit Europe with a 35.8-kWh battery that the company claims is good for 180 miles of WLTP range, as well as fast-charging rates that bring the car from 10% charge to 80% in just 20 minutes — not bad for a way to bop about densely-packed Europe and China.
The Smart #2, of course, isn't coming to the U.S.; at least, it hasn't yet been announced for our market, and we don't expect it ever will be brought here. Orders are open for China and Europe, however, so we can all stare greedily at our friends across the pond with their easy-to-park EVs. Please, Geely, send a few here too.