The Smart Electric Drive is every bit as quirky and fun to drive as its gasoline-burning sibling, and swapping internal combustion for electricity makes for a decent urban runabout with acceptable range. Too bad it's crazy expensive.
We spent some time tooling around Brooklyn, New York, in a Smart ForTwo Electric Drive and found it to be nimble and relatively peppy. Smart says it will do zero to 60 km/hr in 6.5 seconds. For the metrically challenged, that's 37 mph. Yeah, we know. That's slow. But since when do people dragrace microcars? It's quick enough to keep up with urban traffic, which is exactly what it's designed for.
Now that the cars are built and 100 of them have been running around London for a couple of years, the playfully decorated e-microcar enters Phase 2 of its development -- leasing and real-world testing. Smart plans to lease 1,500 ForTwo Electric Drives to businesses and ordinary folks in North America, Europe and parts of Asia beginning this fall. Daimler, which owns Smart, is doing the same thing BMW did with the Mini E electric -- turning some loose in the wild to do a little beta testing. Phase 3 starts in 2012 when the Smart Electric Drive rolls into showrooms.
"It's a milestone for the Smart brand, which was really founded on a positioning of sustainability," says Jill Lajdziak, president of Smart USA. "I think the electric-vehicle technology just capitalizes on what was already an already environmentally friendly vehicle. It's a logical next step and has the opportunity to bring all of the elements the brand had done so well with over time and capitalize on them."
Beyond the flashy green paint, the wheels and the absence of a tailpipe and engine, the electric ForTwo is almost identical to a conventional ForTwo. To build it, Smart dropped the fuel tank and three-cylinder engine in favor of a 16.5 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery and a 30 kilowatt (40 horsepower) motor. Forty horsepower? Yeah, we know. That's nothing. But the motor puts down 88 pound feet of torque, so at least it's got some pep.
The battery, built by Tesla Motors, uses the car's A/C to keep cool. Smart says the battery is good for 82 miles -- we didn't drive it long enough to find out -- and recharges in eight hours when plugged into a 220-volt line. You can bump it from 20 percent to 80 percent state of charge in 3.5 hours. The battery weighs 306 pounds, so to make up for the added heft Smart tweaked the spring rates to maintain the ride height. Beyond those mods, the Electric Drive is a dead ringer for the conventional ForTwo.
Plopping a big honkin' battery in it knocked the car from bantamweight class to featherweight, but it's still nimble. The steering felt every bit as pleasant in its weighting as the conventional car, and the Electric Drive might be a bit more agile because the battery is under the seats. That lowers the center of gravity. We're happy to say the jostling back and forth that accompanies gear changes with the paddle-shifted gearbox of the conventional car is totally absent. The single-speed fixed ratio of the EV is much smoother from a ride and power delivery standpoint.
Want one? Good luck. Just 250 of the 1,500 slated for release are headed to the United States, and 80 percent of those are destined for corporate fleets when they arrive in October. That leaves 50 for the rest of us, and you're looking at $600 a month for 48 months to lease it. If you think that's steep, consider that it reflects the $7,500 federal EV tax credit. Without it, Smart says the lease would have been $915 a month.
Those who can afford that chunk of change have to live in one of the EV-crazy parts of the country like Portland, Oregon, the San Francisco Bay Area or along the I-95 corridor (and some other areas) to get one. Check out the Smart USA site for more info.
Smart will undoubtedly have no trouble finding homes for the 50 cars and a lot of those people won't want to return them. But if Smart hopes to compete against cars like the Nissan Leaf or even the Mitsubishi i-MiEV in the budding EV market, it has to up its game by giving the ForTwo EV more power and a lower price.
*Main photo of a Smart ForTwo EV in Brooklyn: Stuart Schwartzapfel / Wired.com. All others of the ForTwo EV in Germany: Daimler.
*
Stuart Schwarztapfel is an occasional contributor to Wired.com and editor of the automotive blog Man on the Move.
See Also:
- Renault Sets Big Goal For EV Production
- Strong Initial Demand For Nissan's Electric Leaf
- So Smart: Electric ForTwo Arrives This Fall
- Electric Smart Rolling Down the Line
- Tesla Deal Helps Daimler “Bridge” Its Battery Gap
The ForTwo Electric Drive is a converted ForTwo, so the two vehicles are identical beyond the drivetrains.
Same interior, but the EV ditches the five-speed for a single-speed and it gets a pair of battery gauges atop the dash.
The 16.5 kilowatt-hour battery is said to be good for 82 miles, though we didn't drive it long enough to find out. Run it dry and you're looking at eight hours plugged into a 220-volt line, but...
... you can get from 20 percent to 80 percent state of charge in 3.5 hours.
