Production of the smart fortwo electric drive Hambach, France, Begins now Options

[Mike T]

With the Leaf at that price, smart's ED will be a limp performer in comparison....

[gordo.bernard]

"There's a gauge on the dash that tells you the percentage of charge you've got left, how much power you're using, and when the on-board charger has kicked in."

Does this imply there is a charger that runs on fuel and it "kicks in"?

Is this true?

[Mike T]

It's a braking energy recovery system like the Prius etc.

[smart142]

Smart Fortwo Ed

the way ahead for electric cars?Smart's second-generation Fortwo Electric Drive could transform city motoring – with the help of subsidies and easier recharging

Adam Gabbatt The Observer, UK

Sunday 4 July 2010

At the launch of Smart's second-generation electric car last week, Quentin Willson – best known as Jeremy Clarkson's former Top Gear co-host – quoted Aldous Huxley describing how "speed is the only truly modern sensation" in the novel Brave New World.

"Now you've got silent speed," Willson said. "I challenge any motoring nutters to get into one of these electric cars and not be completely blown away."
Except the thing about the Smart Ed – or Smart Fortwo Electric Drive, to give the vehicle its proper title – is that it is not silent. It is whiney. It seems to loathe acceleration, emitting a wail when the pedal is depressed and making a sound of relief when the foot is removed.

Never having been in an electric car before, I was cautious before borrowing the Smart Ed for three days. Would pedestrians fail to hear it and step out into the road in front of me? In reality, road crossers looked sharply over their shoulders, wary of being hit by what sounded like a washing machine performing a full spin cycle.

But driving one is surprisingly good fun. After running round London in a Smart for three days, I struggle to think of a car better suited to the rigours of city motoring. Gearless, it resembles a go-kart in its simplicity, and with the main weight of the vehicle evenly distributed along its floor, it handles better than the petrol or diesel versions.

Its acceleration matches that of the petrol model (not necessarily an impressive boast) and while the top speed is limited to 62mph to conserve battery power, as the Smart is designed for city use this limitation will rarely be noticed.

This version is the company's second electric-powered effort, part of a small-scale production run of about 3,000. One hundred of these will be leased for 12 months, at a heavily subsidised price, to drivers in the UK as part of a wider electric car experiment part-funded by the government's technology strategy board.

The quango has pumped £25m into supplying 340 electric cars, of varying manufacture and size, to people across the UK, and both the government and manufacturers will collect information on how they are used, through data loggers fitted to each car.

Smart is the largest contributor to the scheme, with 60 of these second-generation vehicles loaned out in London and 40 in the West Midlands.

The main advantage over the company's first effort, trialled in London more than two years ago, is the increased battery power, which, according to Smart's figures, gives a range of 84 miles as opposed to 50.

Another obstacle, however, is charging the car. Living in a ground floor flat with no parking space, this issue was eventually resolved by wrestling the communal bin out of its usual location, much to the bemusement of a crowd of children. After backing the car into the bin's normal position, hurling the yellow charging cable through a flatmate's window, locking the car, entering said flatmate's room and plugging the charging cable into a normal plug socket, I was ready to go.

If the car charged in 30 minutes, or even an hour, it might just about be bearable. As it is, it takes eight hours to charge from 0% to 100%, which is a little too long to deprive neighbours of their refuse unit.

Recognising the problem of home charging, supporters argue that increasing the number of electric cars is dependent on increasing the number of publicly accessible charging points. As it is, there are fewer than 300 in the UK, the vast majority of them in the capital.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has pledged to expand the number of points in the capital to 25,000 by 2015, but a bigger threat to the success of electric cars may be looming. Last week business secretary Vince Cable pointedly refused to confirm the former Labour government's pledge to subsidise new electric cars by up to £5,000 – sparking a letter of warning from manufacturers, who are now concerned that the new government is jeopardising the switch to green cars.

Given that, at the moment, the cost of batteries makes electric cars significantly more expensive than their more traditional counterparts, the loss of the subsidy could be a huge blow for the bid to boost their numbers on the road.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Smart says it is "extremely difficult to estimate even a ballpark figure" on how much the electric drive will cost. However judging by other electric car makers, it is unlikely to be cheap.

On average, electric cars tend to cost at least £10,000 more than similar-sized petrol or diesels. The Nissan Leaf goes on sale next February at £28,350 – around £10,000 more than an equivalent petrol or diesel, while the Mitsubishi iMiEV is priced at £38,699 – four times the cost of the petrol version.

For the extra money, purchasers will save almost £800 per year (assuming 10,000 miles a year) in fuel costs compared with a petrol smart, getting a vehicle that costs less than £2 to fully charge and just 2p per mile to run.

But the electric smart will reduce CO2 emissions by 2.6 tonnes per year over 10,000 miles when compared with the industry average.

Adam Gabbatt
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Source.
with pictures,

[smart142]

Smart goes electric with new car aimed at reclaiming sales

By Clifford Atiyeh

Globe Staff / July 8, 2010

The tiny Smart car, fighting sluggish US sales, is getting a jolt under the seats.

That is where the lithium-ion battery pack sits in the new electric version of the two-seater, located where its 8.7-gallon gas tank used to be.

The Smart ForTwo Electric Drive made its local debut yesterday at the Herb Chambers dealership in Somerville. Taking a cue from BMW, which leased its prototype electric Mini Cooper last year to 500 American drivers, Smart is bringing 250 test models of its electric car to the United States. They will be available through special lease programs, but most will be sold to corporate fleets.

Smart plans to build 1,500 before official production begins in 2012. The four-year lease is expected to cost $31,500, about $10,000 more than the most expensive gasoline-powered Smart, according to Derek Kaufman, one of the brand’s vice presidents.

“What we’re really trying to promote here is the electrification of transportation,’’ he said.

The Smart car, made by Daimler AG, was introduced in Europe in 1998, and brought to the US market two years ago, when gas prices hovered around $4. Nearly 25,000 of the tiny two-seaters were sold that year.

Now that fuel prices have ebbed, Smart has struggled to market a microcar with scant luggage space and average fuel economy. Smart’s US sales through June are down 61 percent over last year, with only 577 sold last month. Herb Chambers, who owns two Smart dealerships, says that in a “good month,’’ he sells up to 20 of the cars.

“If fuel were $4 a gallon, there wouldn’t be a car sitting here,’’ Chambers said in his Somerville showroom.

Other than green wheels, decals, and two circular gauges atop the dashboard to show battery life and available power, there’s no apparent difference from the regular Smart. Power cables stow inside the tailgate, and the motor and other electrical components hide under the cargo floor.

Despite adding roughly 300 pounds worth of batteries engineered by California-based Tesla Motors, the 8-foot, 10-inch ForTwo barely weighs a ton. Maximum speed tops out at 60 miles per hour and its range is 84 miles. A complete charge from a standard outlet takes about eight hours.

Later this year, a wave of electric cars is expected to go on sale from Nissan, Chevrolet, Ford, and Coda, a California start-up. Buyers of electric cars can qualify for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits.

Clifford Atiyeh can be reached at catiyeh@globe.com.
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Source.

[Mike T]

The Leaf will be cheaper and so will the Volt. GM just announced that a lease for the Volt will be $350 US a month over 3 years with $2500 down.

This is $250 per month LESS than the smart ED. Kiss of death for the smart ED I am afraid.

[SameGuy]

The price for the production smart electric drive has yet to be announced. That €500 or $600 figure that keeps floating around is for one of the extremely-limited-pre-production test fleet cars, probably to try to recoup some of the $100 Million they put into lame-duck Tesla Motors.

[Mike T]

So, given the choice between a "pre-production" smart ED and a "regular production" Leaf or Volt at close to half the cost, will smart even be able to lease any of them?

[SameGuy]

Most of them will be going to fleet (corporate) customers just like with the 450 EV trial in London. Those agreements are likely already in place for the most part. Also, the Volt is only "cheaper" based on the estimated monthly lease payment that is using GM's early guess of a very high buyback value. The MSRP is still an other-worldly US$41,000 for an economy car with compact dimensions.