The Leaf KICKED the Smart ED's butt. 2011 Nissan Leaf: A Regular nice person Whooping IL Track Tested: 2011 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive Passion The 0-60 and 1/4 mile times are HORRENDOUS on the Smart ED. Although these aren't from the same publication, the Smart ED is WAY slower than the gasoline powered version at Best & worst cars review, best & worst acceleration and the next slowest, a Kia Rio. Edmunds in a Kio Rio 5 at http://www.edmunds.com/kia/rio/2011/#fullreview got 0-60 mph "in a leisurely 11.5 seconds." For reference, current slow econoboxes can typically run the 1/4 in the 17s or 18s. Beating someone by 2 seconds in the 1/4 is huge. (I know, from personal experience.) The second link reaffirms the lease price that I mentioned at http://priuschat.com/forums/ev-elec...ailable-599-lease-now-purchase-in-2012-a.html. The car can't go faster than 62.5 mph either. Are they nuts?
The $600 lease payments may be applied to the purchase price of the car in 2012. The cars being offered now are beta; I'm pretty sure Smart expects all of them to be exchanged for next years' car. The 'lease' is really a misnomer; a better description is "start paying now for a car *likely* to be offered for about $30k, and drive a beta for about a year for free." 'Course, if you do not like what eventually is offered in 2012 wrt to the car or the deal, too bad. I wonder what will stop a SMART dealer from adding 'market adjustments' and creative fees to the poor sod locked into this rent-to-own scheme.
Interesting. If that's the case, count me amongst the folks that didn't know about this and maybe blame the media for spreading the misperception. It still doesn't sound like a good deal at all, compared to the Leaf.
Wow, it felt peppier...I rode in a Smart ED at the AutoShow and it had me fooled lol. 22.5 seconds to 60mph? Ha!
It's really disappointing this is the best they could come up with. This makes the i Miev look like a cheetah with 0-60 in 13.5 seconds.
But isn't the idea of the Smart EV to make a CITY car? Not sure what the speed limits are in the US in cities but over here it's usually 30 mph and 40 mph on city highways. It should be more than ok in a city and obviously weak on the highway. What were the Smarts 0-30 mph times? When I drove the Nissan Leaf the other week it went like stink upto about 40 mph before easing off a little by the time it got to 60 mph.
IL Track Tested: 2011 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive Passion has the 0-30 mph times. I don't know what "city highways" are. For us, almost all highways/freeways have no traffic lights (w/only very few exceptions). As for speed limits, see [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States"]Speed limits in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]. I didn't know about all these distinctions but I can tell you around where I live now, the highway speed limits are mostly 60 mph (with a bit of 50 mph). Max speed of 62.5 mph w/such pokey acceleration is dangerous on those roads. Once you get a bit further away, it goes higher, as high as 70 mph. Some of the limits make no sense. Some very wide 4 lane roads w/a median in the middle w/plenty of lighting in a suburban area have 35 mph limits. Less than 10 miles away is a 2 lane, dimly lit road in the middle of nowhere (country) and no median/divider where the limit's 55 mph! When I lived in the SF Bay Area (San Jose, CA to be more exact), there were a # of "expressways" (haven't seen any up here). Those usually had 45 mph or 50 mph limits. In So Cal, people drive FAST. Years ago, I remember driving on a section of I-5 in the LA area w/a limit of 55 mph. IIRC, was in the 2nd to slowest lane doing 70 mph w/tons of people still zooming by me.
it's about as fast as the 1st gen smart cdi. (0-60 took 22 secs. the current cdi does it in 18 secs i believe).
Maybe it's not that the car is not suitable for american roads, but that american roads are designed to require stupidly overpowered and fuel thirsty cars.....
And to think this car is infused with Tesla DNA! Let's hope their joint effort with Toyota on the Gen II RAV EV fares better.
Grumpy, you will see a lot of variation depending on the location of the poster. Most people in the U.S. live near large metropolitan areas connected by limited access divided highways. These typically have speed limits from 65 to 85 mph. We don't have divided highways in my part of the woods. The highways in this area are not divided and not limited access. They have traffic lights and driveways scattered about. The U.S. highway passing through the nearest city has a speed limit of 35 mph in the city. Tom
To resurrect an old thread, the 1st link in the OP is dead after Edmunds' site reorg. I was able to grab this from Google's cached copy: I just watched (rewatched?) the video at the bottom of the 2nd URL and it's hilarious. It's also at .
We have them in car2go here, and I tried one on one exit on the highway. I didn't get up to speed It feels fine driving dt, which has special car2go parking spaces. It is to use these spaces that I use the cars, and I like the EV better than the gas version.
The smart fortwo is the sort of car that gives EV's a bad name. The public already thinks they are small anemic golf carts that shouldn't be allowed on the road. So mercedes made a small anemic cheaply made golf cart, calls it an EV, and just solidifies ignorant peoples' views on EVs.
But it is likely to sell like hot cakes in its home market where parking spaces are as rare as hens teeth and petrol costs 3x what you're used to. The Smart EV is only a few thousand more than the petrol/diesel counterparts here with a HV battery lease option or pay more to buy the HV battery outright. A car isn't all about being a jack of all trades. The girlfriend loves her Toyota IQ, not because it's fast or big but because it's tiny and can be parked anywhere. An EV city car makes more sense than a GT. Batteries are limited by range, so why try and make a hugely expensive GT than can cover 300 miles between charges? A small city car used for nipping to the shops or parking on narrow streets and is likely to be a second or even third car won't be needed for long journeys, so a smaller and importantly, cheaper battery is required. It's actually sounds a great idea to be. Horses for courses.
Hey GC, I agree with most of that. I've driven it only because we have special spots reserved for special car2go versions of the smart fourtwo. City cars EVs don't make much sense though. If you look at a spark ev or a leaf versus a smart you seem to get a lot more for your money in that spark or leaf. Neither seem that big or hard to park. It could be a pricing thing, and euopean prices may make the smart car relatively better deal than it is here.
Size is relative. Believe me, there's a big difference in parking an IQ or a Smart compared to a Spark or Golf or similar. In very narrow streets 6 inches or a foot make the difference between parked or not. My Prius is a liability for parking in the city of York. It's too long and many a time I've had to miss a space for that reason.
