Official smart fortwo electric drive thread

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LEAFfan said:
No QC port kills the deal for me.
Originally, the rumor was that this updated vehicle would have a more powerful on-board charger... ~20kW for robust AC charging, with a proper (but rare) high-power EVSE. But it looks like they decided it wasn't worth the cost?
 
Finally got a chance to drive the 2013 yesterday. Better than the 2012, certainly, but still pretty disappointing. Officially it gets from 0-100km is 11.5 seconds, about a half-second faster than the iMiev gets from 0-60mph. But I'm going to say that it feels like it has to be worst in class. Plus there is no Sport mode, and no Eco mode, which makes it far less fun to drive than the iMiev.

The things it has going for it, in my opinion - a real price advantage over anything else ($15,500 in CA after incentives) and more acceptable looks than the iMiev. Is that enough? In a city runabout, when it's just the urban-hipster singleton and occasional date...maybe. But it misses on the practicality front when it comes to the rest of us.
 
mwalsh said:
The things it has going for it, in my opinion - a real price advantage over anything else ($15,500 in CA after incentives) and more acceptable looks than the iMiev. Is that enough? In a city runabout, when it's just the urban-hipster singleton and occasional date...maybe. But it misses on the practicality front when it comes to the rest of us.
It's the price. At $15k it's a damn appealing commuter as long as you don't have too much highspeed freeway driving. That's way cheaper than any other EV.
 
I gave up a smart fortwo cabrio to get my LEAF. I miss the convertible and the attention the smart draws.

But I wonder about the smart EV BMS and heat. I haven't found anything that gives details about active or passive battery cooling.
 
Going to resurrect this old thread as it follows the progress of the former smart car fortwo ED to simply the electric drive version and I've put myself on the waiting list so will post any new updates from smart as well. As mentioned earlier in the thread, we currently still own an '08 smart fortwo coupe and think that a worthy successor to it would be the electric version ... many who have driven this new '13 version against the current gas version think that the electric drive greatly improves the original mission of the smart so we'll see hopefully for ourselves soon enough. We only need the two seats as well as a 30 mile or less daily commute for this particular car so hopefully by the time it comes to IL, our EPA will recognize it for our 10% MSRP rebate and it would end up costing as much as the gas version after all rebates (about 15K) which would make it a great companion to our LEAF and our garage L2 charger would alternate between the two cars ... if the admin could combine the most recent threads on this that would be great so we don't duplicate and keep everything together under someone serious about actually seeing if they can get one! Once again the Midwest may be later in smart electric drive deliveries so if another forum member gets theirs first I'll defer to them but many have decided on plug-in extended, etc. for their companion cars to their LEAF's but we have 3 drivers so might be a bit different.
 
redLEAF said:
many who have driven this new '13 version against the current gas version think that the electric drive greatly improves the original mission of the smart so we'll see hopefully for ourselves soon enough.

It does improve greatly over the previous iteration, but it's still not THAT great - 0-60 still takes over 11 seconds. :(
 
mwalsh said:
redLEAF said:
many who have driven this new '13 version against the current gas version think that the electric drive greatly improves the original mission of the smart so we'll see hopefully for ourselves soon enough.

It does improve greatly over the previous iteration, but it's still not THAT great - 0-60 still takes over 11 seconds. :(

the original mission of these was as an urban commuter and even in its current form, it does that quite well (if a 24 year old kid thinks its OK at least a few others would as well; will add a link to another long time forum on these); my wife's current commute is only 7 miles R/T where it would never get to 60 MPH (the son who drives ours now will be getting his own car when he turns 25 next June -- the smart would revert back to my wife and we know we also should still have enough garage room unless the son goes much bigger than an older Miata which will make room for his new car --- kind of a long story but not much else that will still fit as it sits on the shorter side of our tandem 4-car garage --- possibly a Scion iQ EV (not coming to Chicago) or a Fiat 500e -- again probably not here as well as a Th!nk would have but discontinued).

Our '08 has close to 40K miles now, has had no major issues at all, pretty much just regular maintenance and it has several creature comfort things not found on 'micro' cars -- heated leather seats, auto headlights/wipers/climate, pano roof w/screen similar to the new C-Max and it of course can park pretty much anywhere being so short. Ours has actually now made 3 long distance trips from Chicago to the Michigan U.P. (2 with the son and once myself -- all to visit Mich Tech or his friends going to grad school up there) but the electric one wouldn't need to (or obviously couldn't anyway). On smooth suburban roads or expressways, the car rides fine just watch out for rough roads or pot holes -- it's not one of my favorites but the wife still loves it so why not go electric if it was available? I look at it as more 'carbon credits' for the SUV I bought to replace our '09 VW Routan as there was really nothing out there in the market that was close as a PHEV now.

Still no set date on when these will be here in Chicago but some have said that Phoenix may see some in February so would be interested in how these would fair in the heat -- not a concern for us but hopefully MBZ has taken this into consideration after what's happened to some LEAF owners out there. Here is another link on that ... our Schneider EVlink can take the 16-amp load so should get the shorter charge from empty time.

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/10/10/2013-smart-fortwo-electric-drive-first-drive-review/

"Ninety-three lithium ion battery cells, created by Daimler partner Li-Tec, are laid flat under the floor with particular automotive requirements in mind. The primary benefit of the new design is that the electric powertrain can function well anywhere between -50°F and 176°F. The possible range from a full charge of the 17.6-kilowatt hour pack is 90 miles, and a full recharge, which never happens to a typical owner or lessee, would need seven hours from a 13-amp 220-volt plug or six hours from a 16-amp plug. There is no DC quick charge option. Alas."

http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/
 
redLEAF said:
The primary benefit of the new design is that the electric powertrain can function well anywhere between -50°F and 176°F.
:shock: I think that should cover our needs!
redLEAF said:
The possible range from a full charge of the 17.6-kilowatt hour pack is 90 miles,...
That's a bigger battery than I imagined in the Smart ED.

ED is a pretty funny name for a car, I must admit! Hopefully it's not a prerequisite for ownership! ;)
 
RegGuheert said:
redLEAF said:
The primary benefit of the new design is that the electric powertrain can function well anywhere between -50°F and 176°F.
:shock: I think that should cover our needs!
redLEAF said:
The possible range from a full charge of the 17.6-kilowatt hour pack is 90 miles,...
That's a bigger battery than I imagined in the Smart ED.

ED is a pretty funny name for a car, I must admit! Hopefully it's not a prerequisite for ownership! ;)

I think that's why smart dropped the reference as well and simply refers to it as 'electric drive' (all lower case just like the original smart reference) the logo on the side of the behind the door pillar is a picture of an 'E' with an electric plug (some have said it too closely matches another we've seen here added to a few LEAF's). It does have some decent spec's for such a small car, another possibility would be the smaller of the BMW 'i'series but once again, not very likely to make it anytime soon in the Midwest and especially at this price point.
 
Got this back from the head of the IL EPA vehicle rebate program ... at least preliminary --- so end result would be in IL the after Fed tax Credit and IL EPA rebate, it would indeed net out at $15,000 (IL requires a purchase, no leased cars and gives the rebate back as a check, not a tax credit, etc. --- it's 10% of MSRP up to $4K so $2,500 in the smart's case):

"Thanks for the info. I knew that the electric Smart car was going to be released. It appears that it will meet the criteria for our program. It also must be legal to be driven on “all public roadways,” including interstates. The current Smart car is, so I assume this one is too.

Darwin Burkhart, Manager
Clean Air Programs
Division of Mobile Source Programs
Illinois EPA"
 
Not to pile on to this thread but temperature management on the smart seems to work; even on the current Gen II, would imagine Gen III coming out in Feb 2013 works even better ---

A Gen II ED reference point
Photo and description courtesy of the owner, Mindy Kimball:


displayimage.php


Quote:
This was the smart electric drive on a hot August day. Outside temp about 110 degrees, car reading 127 because of the hot asphalt (I took this while in stop-and-go traffic on the highway). I had the Air Conditioning on, and the car was doing just fine. You'll notice the performance bars are not at 100% - this is likely because the battery cooling system was working hard to keep the car running well. I have not had the same battery depletion issues as the Nissan Leaf - and I think a lot of that has to do with the active/liquid cooling system on the battery.
 
Not that anyone seems to consider these new mileage ratings as important as other than bragging rights as well as speculation that each mfg. appears to be inaccurate (i.e., Hyundai and most recently Ford with the C-Max and Fusion) but here are smart's MPGe numbers ... as always, mileage will vary

ev_hero.jpg


coupe & cabriolet 122 MPGe city 93 MPGe highway 107 MPGe combined

http://www.smartusa.com/models/elec...c2012_Reg&utm_medium=ecrm&utm_content=explore

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=32357&id=32358&id=33306&id=33305
 
Quick video from DW TV (dubbed in English) ... most interesting takeaway was that you can't unplug the charging cord when its charging unless the car is unlocked, not sure if U.S. models would get this feature as well but not something our LEAF's have. The 'tester' ran out of power (surprise!); I would have thought that the Europeans would better understand the limits, etc. of EV's but as they don't mention any competitors at all not surprised as we've seen this before. This appears to be a Gen III as the smart logo has moved from the hood to the grill. Also in Germany this car costs 24,000 Euros! ($31,465.56 at latest exchange rates) so I guess we should be thankful it's only $25K here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ejPrn4JBLY[/youtube]
 
This one is a test on the UK version, nice photo (although not close enough detail) of an app somewhat similar to navi display showing driving range on our LEAF's, interestingly enough, they quote a 90 mile range but this has to be the euro cycle test and not of course the U.S. EPA of 68 miles, with the low end LEAF expected to be at $28,800 it brings it within only $3,800 on the smart so perhaps a tougher sell; still the lowest priced EV (so far) but by a smaller margin:

Smart-Fortwo-Electric-Drive-iPhone.jpg


http://www.carbuzz.co.uk/blog/Smart-Fortwo-Electric-Drive-359
 
Got a phone call and email on Thursday from Smart SD asking if I was still interested and to come in and place a deposit for an April delivery.
 
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