Daimler Make a Smart Decision

In a surprise move, Mercedes-Benz has announced that they’ll be pulling the Smart car from North America. Surprising in that they still build those things?

Introduced in 1994 in Germany and didn’t cross the pond until 2008. Looking much the same then as it does now (embarrassing) it promised to be the future of urban transportation. That made sense as the financial collapse of ’08 saw trucks and SUVs forever banished for their preposterous fuel consumption, size, and general gaudiness.

Strangely, a small, fuel-efficient city-runner with a tiny footprint (carbon and literal) failed to catch on. As the Big Three struggled to remain viable and individual life-savings were lost nationwide, you’d think that Smart would find an audience if out of necessity if not passion.

You’d think that until you saw it. Then you’d totes understand the emergence of e-bikes around that same time (ugh). Seems that most people figured that if they had to commute in humiliation, having the risk of a mercy-killing at the hands of a distracted driver was maybe a better option than the roll cage-chassis offered by the ForTwo.

Also, with an inline-three offering a meager 70HP, the truth was that the Smart’s 40MPG wasn’t enough of an advantage over other cars available at the time. You could get a Golf, Corolla, or even a Civic offering similar mileage and not feel like an asshole. You’d also have room for things like a suitcase or another person. Even both!

In 2017, MB switched Smart over to an all-electric drivetrain, hoping to ride the electric hype-train that Telsa was leading (conducting?). The change made sense: most people assumed that the Smart car was battery-operated anyway. It also gave them a purpose.

What it didn’t give them was interest from the general public. Rated at 80HP, the updated ForTwo managed 118LB-FT of torque which somehow only pushed the little cart to 60MPH in 11.7 seconds. Longer if someone pulls on the back bumper when you try and pull away.

A mere 70-80 miles of travel off 16.5 hours of charging on a standard outlet didn’t prove attractive, either. That it would take you almost 20-times longer to charge than you could travel wasn’t an obvious sign to Daimler that maybe they were sitting on a terrible product.

Ah, well.

So, with little fanfare, the Little Car that Couldn’t will no be available no longer this side of the Atlantic. Not that you’d notice.