Smart #3 Reviews

Another electric car brand is headed to Australia this year.Smart is back after exiting our shores about a decade ago. Gone are the micro cars of the first instalment and in their place are a range of city-focused electric cars produced by a joint venture with Mercedes-Benz and Geely in China.The Smart #1 and Smart #3 are confirmed to arrive in Australia in the third quarter of this year.The #1 and #3 are built on the same platform but the #1 is a conventionally shaped compact SUV and the #3 is a coupe-style SUV of the same size.Both use a 66kWh lithium-ion battery that delivers a driving range of up to 440km on a single charge.They use a single electric motor that sends 200kW and 343Nm to the rear wheels.An all-wheel-drive performance version wearing the Brabus badge is available overseas.Smart hasn’t revealed prices yet but it’s expected to have an entry price that is highly competitive with current non-premium EV offerings of similar size.This could point to a circa-$50,000 starting point to match the BYD Atto 3.The Smart #1 is a conventionally shaped compact SUV.Smart has set up its own operations in Australia and will sell the vehicles through LSH Auto Australia, a network of dealers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane that currently distribute Mercedes-Benz products.Global Chief Marketing Officer of Smart Mandy Zhang said the brand is planning a global expansion.“The Australian market holds significant potential for growth, and with LSH Auto Australia’s extensive local resources and expertise, we are excited to join hands,” said Zhang.The Federal Government’s new National Vehicle Efficiency Standard is a big reason for Smart re-entering our market.Under the new legislation car brands will be fined for every vehicle they sell that emit CO2 over a certain level, which will make petrol and diesel cars more expensive and EVs more competitive.Smart is the latest of many EV brands out of China to announce its headed our way.This includes GAC, Leapmotor, Skywell, Xpeng and Zeekr.Geely has a wide portfolio of electric cars. It owns Volvo and Polestar, which are both available in Australia, and its Zeekr brand will be here by the end of the year.

The motor show is dying. Even before the global pandemic shut down these events for several years, the spark had gone out as car makers invested less and less in these once extravagant expos.

Smart Automobile might have made a choice appropriate for its brand name when it named its new small electric car, the #3, skipping over #2 and avoiding some crass jokes.

It seems that as society starts to shift toward smaller domiciles, so too should we be shifting to smaller cars – which is a bit of an issue given carmakers have been steadily subtracting light cars from their Australian showrooms, or pricing them deep into the $20K-plus region.

If your first instinct is to say ‘Mini’ you’d be wrong. How wrong? Precisely 168cm wrong. That’s because while the original Mini hatch was a compact 305cm in length, the world’s smallest car is the Peel P50 which measures just 137cm long.

Micro cars may be on the nose in Australia but no one seems to have told the makers.

The world's smallest car, the Smart ForTwo, will soon be withdrawn from sale locally because Australians aren't prepared to pay a premium for a city runabout.Priced from $18,990 drive-away the Smart car costs almost as much as a Toyota Corolla but is half the size and only has two seats.In Europe, where parking space is a premium, the Smart car has been a sales success because it is viewed as a "four-wheeled scooter" for its ability to squeeze into the tightest of spots.Australian sales have been in freefall since a peak in 2005Originally a joint venture between watch maker Swatch and the inventor of the automobile Mercedes-Benz, the Smart is only marginally longer than most cars are wide and can park perpendicular to the footpath.But Australian sales have been in freefall since a peak in 2005; demand became so weak that vehicle orders moved to online only in June 2013.Just 22 Smart cars have been sold so far this year in a market that is showing signs of recovery.Buyers have shunned the pint-sized parking solutionEven though Australia's cities and inner suburbs are becoming more congested, buyers have shunned the pint-sized parking solution."We worked really hard to keep the Smart car but not enough Australians are buying it in the numbers we need to make it viable," said Mercedes-Benz Australia spokesman David McCarthy. "It's regrettable, but it's the way it is."More than 4400 Smart cars have been sold in Australia in the 12 years since 2003, including 296 Smart Roadsters from 2003 to 2006 and 585 ForFour four-door hatchbacks from 2004 to 2007.To date, 3517 of the more widely recognised Smart ForTwo cars have been sold in Australia over two model generations.Mercedes-Benz says it will continue to offer service and parts for the Smart cars that have been sold in Australia and that it has a couple of months worth of unsold stock remaining.Mr McCarthy said: “Mercedes-Benz dealers … will continue to provide service and support to the Smart range.” Leaving the door open for its possible return at a later date he added: “Mercedes-Benz Australia will continue to monitor potential Smart brand opportunities in the market.”Ironically, the news of Smart's demise in Australia comes after the company released an all-new model in Europe that addresses the criticisms of the current car, and would likely find broader appeal thanks to its roomier cabin and more car-like driving dynamics. Now it won't make the boat to Australia.Mercedes-Benz says a high proportion of Smart ForTwo buyers in Australia also own one of its $200,000 S-Class limousine flagshipsThe original Smart model was known for its use as a novelty car towing advertising billboards, featured in the DaVinci Code movie as a getaway vehicle, and Mercedes-Benz even commissioned US fashion designer Jeremy Scott to create his dream Smart car, on which he fitted giant wings.The Smart car also attracted wealthy buyers. Mercedes-Benz says a high proportion of Smart ForTwo buyers in Australia also own one of its $200,000 S-Class limousine flagships and use the Smart as a second car.The shutdown of the Smart brand locally is another sign of how cut-throat the Australian new-car market has become.Last year the Opel brand from Germany was axed after just 11 months, while in 2009 the iconic Cadillac brand from the US aborted its launch in Australia at the 11th hour, after dealers had been appointed and cars had been imported.There are more than 60 automotive brands competing for 1.1 million annual sales in Australia – compared to 38 marques in the USA and 46 in western Europe, both of which sell more than 15 times as many cars as Australia.2014: 1082013: 1262012: 1422011: 2362010: 2872009: 3822008: 3302007: 4592006: 7732005: 7992004: 4792003: 255

The inventor of the motor car has re-invented it, with the new Smart ForTwo.

We always knew that Smart’s foray into the US market was an ambitious one, with the tiny ForTwo contrasting sharply with the American taste for pickup trucks and big SUVs.And now one US ForTwo owner has bridged the gap between the three cylinder, two-seat micro and more common US fare by sitting it atop a big block Chevy V8 and drag car chassis.With classic bigs ‘n littles placed well outside the ForTwo’s compact body, the result looks like the offspring of a Smart and a 60s F1 car, with the exhaust note of a monster truck. Plenty of people have fitted powerful motorcycle engines to their Smarts before, but this big block example takes the cake. Watch the desktop version of the Smart ForTwo drag car video here.

ForTwo is coming up soon and Daimler is testing the two-seater city tiddler while it also develops a stretched four-seat model for the first time.The second-generation ForTwo is more cute and curvy than the first, with engine choices that will include a fully-electric model. The new Smart is also being cloned into the new Renault Twingo, which means a switch to rear-wheel drive for the French bebe.