Smart Move
The Smart fortwo electric drive is on display at this year’s L.A. Auto Show. It’s not just an important step forward for a company that prides itself on environmental leadership: It’s a statement about conservation and ecological awareness.
“The Smart fortwo electric drive is the ultimate statement on innovative automotive conservation,” said Jill Lajdziak, president of Smart USA. “As the United States sets goals on CO2 reduction and oil independence, the Smart fortwo electric drive enters the market at the right time…. [It’s] transportation electrification with a no-compromise design.”
When conceiving the fortwo more than 20 years ago, Daimler developers anticipated the need for an alternative powertrain. Though the technology didn’t yet exist, engineers designed the fortwo so that the future integration of electric drive components could be easily facilitated.
Good thing they did.
Two decades later, when technology had finally caught up with the company’s electric aspirations, designers were able to incorporate the components and battery for an electric drivetrain without making sacrifices to the Smart fortwo’s safety, agility, comfort or cargo space. The result is an electric fortwo that looks just like its combustion-engine counterpart.
A group of 250 electric drive fortwos began arriving stateside last month, the second phase of a three-phase program. Phase 1 consisted of the placement of 100 electric drive units in London in 2007. Phase 2 involves the placement of 1,500 cars in cities across Europe, the United States and Canada, as well as selected markets in Asia. Phase 3 will be volume production for the 2012 model year.
Smart fortwo electric drive vehicles are (as you might have guessed) fully electric, powered by a 30-kilowatt drive motor and a 16.5-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery. Using a standard 220-volt outlet, it takes 3.5 hours to charge the battery from 20% to 80% of its capacity and less than eight hours to fully charge it. The battery can also be charged using a common household 110-volt outlet. The vehicles can reach highway speeds and offer a range of 82 miles on a single charge.
Ecology is a hallmark of the Smart fortwo, from the environmentally friendly manufacturing process (which takes place in Hambach, France), to the fact that 95% of the vehicle’s parts can be recycled. Of course, the vehicle’s diminutive size means that less material is needed to produce the fortwo. It also means that the fortwo is considerably lighter than most other vehicles on the road — making it more energy efficient than, well, just about everything on four wheels.
