The Smart #1 is a tiny EV crossover with a great name and cute styling.
Smart
After a nearly decade of selling the Fortwo, a tiny two-seat city car anathema to American tastes, Mercedes pulled the Smart brand from the U.S. in 2019. Three years later, Smart has revealed a car that Americans might actually want, but won’t come here. Meet the Smart #1.
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The excellently named Smart #1 is very much a car of the moment—a compact EV crossover. It has a 66-kWh battery pack driving a 268-hp motor mounted at the rear axle. That’s a lot of power for something that’s about the same size as a Volkswagen Golf, though of course slightly taller. As you’d expect, the Smart #1 is quite a lot heavier than a Golf, with a claimed “empty weight” of 4012 pounds. Range is estimated to be 260-273 miles using the fairly generous European WLTP cycle—were the Smart #1 to come to the U.S., the range figure would be much smaller.
Smart is now a joint venture between Mercedes and China’s Geely—which owns Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus—and the #1 rides on a Geely platform. The design inside and out, is very much baby Mercedes, however. Park this next to the rest of MB’s crossover lineup, and it wouldn’t look out of place. And despite its small footprint, Autocar reports that the Smart #1 has the same amount of interior space as a Mercedes E-Class.
Smart
Cars like the Hyundai Kona and Honda HR-V prove that Americans like subcompact crossovers, and more and more consumers are going electric. The #1 seems far more appealing to American consumers than the Fortwo—interesting though it was—ever was. Too bad we won’t get it.
Keyword: Smart Finally Makes a Car Americans Might Want, But It Won’t Be Sold Here