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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.

Wednesday 27 January 2010

The SMART Car

Written by Alan Bellows

In lots of places other than the United States, there is a plucky little automobile for sale called the Swatch Mercedes ART car, orSMART car for short. It gets an impressive 69 miles per gallon (diesel), yet it has the get-up-and-go of an average compact car. It is available in most of Europe, Asia, Australia, and in Canada, but it has not been marketed in the United States yet because it is contrary to Mercedes-Benz’s high-priced luxury stance in the U.S..

At first glance, it looks like a glorified golf cart. It’s even Mini-er than the Mini, so small that two SMART cars can share one standard parking space. It also looks a bit unsafe considering that this tiny, 1,600 pound two-seater is meant to share the road with the likes of the 6,400 pound Hummer H2. But it’s not quite as deathtrappy as one might think.

The rear-mounted three-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine only produces about forty horsepower, however the car is so lightweight that those forty horses go a lot farther than one would think. But it’s certainly no race car; it takes just short of twenty seconds to accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour (about 62 miles per hour), and it has a maximum speed of about 85 miles per hour due to an electronic speed governor. It’s geared with a clutchless 6-speed manual gearbox.

SMART car shellIt has high-end braking and stability control features to help it keep its footing, and a few nice little features such as a system to prevent the car from rolling back when starting on an uphill slope. The passenger compartment is protected by a reinforced steel cage which its engineers call the “walnut,” allowing the car’s exterior to absorb much of the energy of an impact. The cage holds up to some brutal punishment… for example, in one test the cage remained intact after impacting a 20 ton block of concrete at 70 MPH (see video link below). But it’s not perfect, it has many of the same impact-related problems as other smaller cars. In Europe’s five-star crash rating system, the SMART car weighs in at three stars.

In Canada, the base SMART coupe can be had for about $12,100, which is about $9000 less than a base-model Toyota Prius, and about 10 miles per gallon more efficient. But the Prius’ zero-to-sixty time of about 10.5 seconds will smoke a SMART car, and the Prius gets five stars on the same crash-test rating system that gave the SMART car three stars. As for looks, they’re both equally goofy in design, but in distinct ways.

Mercedes plans to bring SMART cars to the U.S. someday soon, so if you’re looking for an inexpensive ultra-fuel-efficient car that is reasonably safe, it may become the best option, as long as you don’t mind the fact that it’s gutless.

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