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The rest of us might have to pay a $99 reservation fee and wait a minimum of one year to purchase a new Smart Car, but ain’t nothing stopping the City of Somerville from obtaining those golf-cart wannabes.

Mayor Joe Curtatone pulled a couple of strings last week at the Somerville-based Herb Chambers auto dealership and secured four new Mercedes Smart Fortwos for the school custodians and property assessors to use at work. At night the code inspectors will get the Smart Cars. They’re replacing a 1994 Chevy Blazer, which boasted a dismal 11 miles to the gallon.

Like their eco-vain neighbors in Boston, Somerville’s pretty proud of their pint-sized vehicles, decorated with the city’s seal, with their 60 miles to the gallon and their perpendicular curb parking. We’re wondering if Keohane and Cartman need to put Somerville on Smug Alert. Somerville spokeswoman Lesley Hawkins believes they are forging ahead of a national trend. The municipality is the first in the country to use Smart Cars for city employees, but she’s betting they won’t be the last. (Smug Alert increasing to Yellow.)

Mayor Curtatone adds that the environmentally friendly vehicles will help “maintain fiscal responsibility, lower carbon emissions, and promote alternative means of commuting.” (We hit Red, people; we hit Red!!)

The cars are also available to city employees to sign out on a case-by-case basis for use on official city business. If this pilot program is successful, the city will look to purchase more Smart Cars to encourage city employees to bike or take public transportation to work and then use the Smart Cars for city errands. (Wa-ooo-waa-ooo-wa–ooo! We’re at White Hot! Repeat: Tofu White Hot!)

Whether you love them, or think they should come with a bag of Callaways, Smart Cars are here to stay. More than 11,000 Americans purchased Smart Cars since their U.S. launch in January and the number of worldwide drivers is fast approaching one million. Even GM wants in; the automaker will bring the Chevy Beat—a brand sold in Europe—to the U.S. within the next few years.

If Somerville is a reliable indicator, GM better enter the market before the rest of Chevy’s SUVs are scrapped. Of course, the town may still need a few SUVs for those pesky occasions when the superintendent of school custodians needs to transport anything bigger than a laptop.

—DAVID MASHBURN




The Smart Car is undoubtedly cute and novel, but is it a smart choice for drivers that are concerned about the environment as well as their wallet? We've given the Smart a lot of coverege here on treehugger (here, here, here, here, here and here, for instance), always evoking mixed reviews from our writers and readers alike. Eric Taub of the NY Times recently test drove the Smart ForTwo for two weeks on the streets of Los Angeles, and found the experience to be, well, mediocre. While he acknowledged that the car got him as much attention as the iPhone when it first came out, when it came time to take it on the roads the car underperformed in numerous ways.

For one thing, although the Smart had no problem getting up to 80 MPH on the highway, "once at speed, the engine thrashed and the car was buffeted by the wake of passing tractor trailers, giving me pause when I thought about taking one hand off the wheel. The experience was akin to crossing the upper level of the George Washington Bridge in a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle on a windy day." Cornering wasn't much better, either: "the body roll was pronounced, causing a friend to reflexively grab the dash."

The battery electric

Based on the previous Smart, more than 100 of these battery-electric prototypes have been built by Zytec in Fradley, Staffordshire, and are now being released on a four-year nationwide trial. The high-temperature, molten-salt battery is a natrium-nickel-chloride unit made by MES-DEA of Switzerland and mounted under the floor where the fuel tank sits in a conventional Smart. Its rated output is 15.5kW/hrs and it weighs 302lb. It runs permanently at temperatures of between 260 and 330 degrees centigrade and keeping the unit to that temperature takes between 10 and 15 per cent of the battery's capacity. Nevertheless, these so-called Zebra batteries are robust, with a proven long life and good resistance to overcharging.

The 30kW/41hp brushless, liquid-cooled DC motor is designed and built by Zytek, with the motor, the inverter and its controlling electronics in one housing that fits neatly onto the three standard engine mountings. A conventional transmission is retained, but it is locked into second gear; there's no need for more given the torque delivery characteristics and 12,000rpm peak operating speed of the electric motor.

The top speed is 75mph, 0-37mph takes 5.7sec (the same as the petrol version) and while the typical range in everyday use will be about 50 miles, gentle driving can extend that to 70. The key to this is gentle acceleration and braking, as the car will recycle the braking energy as current if you don't hit the anchors too hard. The battery can be recharged via a conventional 220/240 volt domestic socket - it takes eight hours for a full charge from empty, three-and-a-half hours to charge it from 30 to 80 per cent of its capacity. On the European Combined cycle, power consumption is about 12kW/hrs per 62 miles and at current values that costs about 0.02 euros per kilometre (2.6 pence per mile). The battery can be recharged at least 1,000 times, which in normal use gives a life of about 10 years.

Inside, the battery Smart is almost identical to its petrol sister; there's no gear lever, of course, and there is a charge-level indicator in the middle of the instrument binnacle, but that's about it. Starting takes no more than five seconds after a systems check, then it's a simple case of push the pedal and go.

Initial acceleration is scorching as the traction motor delivers all its 88.5lb ft of torque to the rear wheels from virtually zero revs. It sounds pathetic to say so, but the electric Smart surges off so quickly it's quite difficult to manoeuvre in tight places, so you need to learn to cover the brake with your left foot. In common with other electric cars, you also need to learn to use the horn, as pedestrians simply don't hear the little car coming. There is some noise from the driveline in the form of a high-pitched whine, but it is far quieter than some hydrogen fuel-cell cars I have driven.

The standard Smart is hardly the acme of ride quality and with an additional 220lb (110kg) on board, the electric version is possibly worse, though not by much. On smooth roads this volt-powered two-seater is fine but the individual wheel suspension rates are high; it crashes into pot-holes and sleeping policeman are an experience best forgotten. The electrically powered air-conditioning system, in addition, is a joke. But in its natural urban environment, the electric Smart is a hoot. The limited top speed is never a problem and there's enough instant surge to go for gaps in the traffic. It's also reassuring that the Smart has a four-star crash safety rating.

Fans of pure battery-electric technology always seem to have a blind spot about what lies beyond the plug, in other words where the electricity comes from; most "electric" vehicles are actually coal, gas or nuclear powered. That said, the terms of the Smart trial insist that the cars be charged from a carbon-neutral or offset electricity supply.

Companies and organisations interested in test-driving one of the electric Smarts must apply to Mercedes-Benz in Milton Keynes; costs are currently running at £380 a month for the lease plus the electricity to charge it.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Is the Smart Car For You?

NEW YORK (AP) - At just 8 feet, 8 inches long and about 5 feet wide, the two-seat Smart car turned heads as it rolled through Manhattan one recent evening at rush hour.

Pedestrians in Times Square gawked. In front of Grand Central Terminal, a cabbie rolled down his window and asked, "What is it? How much?" Two nearby police officers both gave it a thumbs up.

The 1,800-pound "micro-car" - more than 3 feet shorter than fellow European pipsqueak the MINI Cooper - is likely to be the smallest thing on four wheels when it hits the U.S. car market in early 2008. Produced in France by the Mercedes Car Group, the "Fortwo" model has been on a 50-city U.S. tour this summer, including Detroit, Smart USA's corporate headquarters.

Its base price is $12,000, and it's hard to beat the fuel efficiency of about 40 miles per gallon. If any car can squeeze into Manhattan parking spots, this is it. And Smart is hip: The Museum of Modern Art has displayed it as an innovative, stylish solution to two practical problems: urban crowding and diminishing energy.

But the big question is: How many Americans, used to SUVs and other hefty vehicles, will take to this itty bitty car? Is it safe?

"Just how many urban fashionistas are there?" wrote Juergen Zoellter in a review this spring for Car and Driver magazine, predicting only limited U.S. sales. He said the prospect of driving a Fortwo in truck trafficon American highways was "scary."

"In the States, the vehicle's size may work against it," he wrote.

The Smart car's U.S. crash-test results will be announced this fall, said David Schembri, president of Smart USA and a veteran auto marketing executive, previously with Mitsubishi. He said it's expected to get four stars out of a possible five.

The European New Car Assessment Program crash-tested a previous model, the Smart City Coupe, and gave it a three-star rating out of a possible five. The U.S. model is almost 8 inches longer than the European one, with safey improvements including a steel safety "cage" inside, more air bags, and "intelligent" seatbelts that sense motion changes.

Of course, once outside the cage, there's not a whole lot of car left.

"Even with modern safety features like multiple air bags, people in small, light cars are always at a disadvantage in crashes," said Russ Rader of the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The United States is way behind the rest of the world in embracing small, fuel-efficient cars. But even abroad, the Smart car has not been profitable. With about 750,000 cars sold in 36 countries, the company reportedly has lost billions of dollars. Last year, sales fell to 102,700 vehicles worldwide from 124,300 in 2005.

Still, more than 20,000 wannabe Smart owners in the United States have already signed up.

Schembri calls it "the wow factor."

The Smart car "challenges habits of personal mobility," said a MoMA tag for a 2002 display of the vehicle. In August, the little car was taken for test drives at East Hampton, N.Y., playground of the hungry-for-novelty rich. Commercials for the Nintendo Wii, meanwhile, a video game system, have featured a Smart in white with sky blue accents, mirroring the game's colors.

Even at 6-foot-1 and "not skinny," Schembri said he fits comfortably behind the wheel. The quick-handling vehicle, with a more than 70-horsepower, 1-liter, three-cylinder engine, is "so much fun to drive it's addictive," he said.

The Smart car began in the early 1990s, when Nicolas Hayek, inventor of the Swatch watch, went toMercedes-Benz with his idea for an "ultra-urban" car with interchangeable body panels for style and color - a feature similar to the trendy Swiss watch. The prototype of the Smart City Coupe was introduced in Germany in 1997.

Swatch is no longer involved with the car, but the "S" in Smart still stands for Swatch, the "m" for Mercedes, and the "art" for, well, the artsy combos that are options.

For instance, it can come as a "cabriolet" (French for convertible), or if an owner gets tired of the color, the body panels - made of recycled plastic - can be removed and switched.

In addition, the same Smart car can be driven either stick shift or automatic. Gears are changed using either the traditional floor "stick," or by squeezing levers under the steering wheel - right to shift up, left to shift down.

One fancier version, starting at $14,000, includes air conditioning, alloy wheels and a panoramic roof. The convertible, starting at about $17,000, features an upgraded sound system with MP3 capability and a six-disc CD changer.

The target U.S. market, said Schembri, includes first-time car buyers, urban sophisticates, baby boomers looking for a second car, and "empty-nest" parents.

The first U.S. Smart car dealerships will be announced later this year, with sales and service handled by Smart USA, a division of the Penske Automotive Group, which is distributing the car in North America and Puerto Rico.
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