2009 Smart Fortwo Passion on 2040-cars

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This guy sold his Camaro to buy a Smart EV, and loves it

The Dead Milkmen will be very displeased. Stephen Grinwis has decided to explain to Clean Technica why he sold his Chevrolet Camaro for – get this – a Smart ED electric vehicle. We can already hear the Milkmen, performers of the 1985 punk masterpiece Bitchin' Camaro, crying in their Stoney's Extra Stout. But green is green, and this case, the man said he was going broke driving the Camaro by spending $550 a month on gas and shredding his $3,000 set of tires. His Smart ED costs him about $20 a month worth of electricity, and the maintenance costs are way lower. Grinwis also claims the Smart ED is more fun because he can floor it off the line without garnering any police attention. He also says lots of folks ask him about the car, perhaps because he's always zipping a full speed. He boasts of having an eco-driving rate in the ED of under 20 percent, making us wonder if his single-charge range is about the length of a driveway. Grinwis is somewhat of a rare breed, in that just 1,390 Smart EDs were sold in the US through July (Smart, a division of Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, still hasn't submitted its August numbers to AutoblogGreen). Through August, General Motors sold about 65,000 Camaros. And they're still bitchin'.

San Diego Car2go fleet replaced with 400 2014 Smart Fortwo EVs

The city of San Diego was the first in the US to get an all-electric fleet of Car2go carsharing vehicles. Back in 2011, the Daimler-owned carsharing service started offering local drivers the chance to get to their destination in a battery-powered car for around 40 cents a minute. It's proven to be a success, with over a million trips taken in the city since launch. Car2go has been changing how it runs the program, introducing charging incentives last year. Now, the entire fleet of EVs is going to be replaced with 400 2014 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive vehicles. The news is welcome, since each iteration of the Fortwo ED improves on the previous version, but it again highlights just how long we will have to wait in the US to get the totally updated EV. If it was coming before 2016 or early 2017, as is currently the plan, maybe Car2go wouldn't be so eager to update right now. As always, you asked and we listened! As always, you asked and we listened! We are very excited to share the news that beginning today we are replacing our current fleet with 400 powerful 2014 smart fortwo Electric Drives. The addition of our new vehicles will also increase the car2go San Diego fleet size providing members with more vehicles throughout the Home Area. These brand new vehicles, while maintaining their zero-emissions footprint, have a much smoother acceleration, and overall, a more comfortable car2go driving experience that we know our members will truly enjoy (especially on the freeway). We hope to have the entire fleet switched out in a very short period of time. When driving a new car2go vehicle you'll notice stronger acceleration and breaking. Due to the different handling experiences, you should familiarize yourself with the two cosmetic differences between the old and new vehicles. The new vehicles will have the smart logo inside of the grille whereas old vehicles have the logo on the hood. The car2go logo is also larger on the new vehicles. Since launch, the car2go Home Area has expanded to 45 square miles within San Diego, providing all of our members the flexibility to get to their destinations at their convenience without having to return the vehicle. Today, we have seen nearly 1,000,000 car2go trips taken since our initial launch in San Diego in November 2011 as the largest electric carsharing fleet in the nation. We are constantly striving to be member focused to get you what you want and appreciate all the feedback we receive from our members.

Geely and Mercedes-Benz invest $780 million to make electric Smart cars

BEIJING/SHANGHAI — Zhejiang Geely and Mercedes-Benz on Wednesday said they would each invest $388.77 million (2.7 billion yuan) in a China-based venture to build "premium and intelligent electrified" vehicles under the Smart brand. The 50:50 venture has received regulatory approval and will be based in the Chinese coastal city of Ningbo, the Chinese and German automakers said in a statement. Like Mercedes-Benz, smart is a Daimler marque. The venture will have manufacturing capacity in China and sales operations in China and Germany, the automakers said. Geely will lead in engineering the cars while Mercedes-Benz will take charge of their overall look, they said. The partners will each have three executives on the board of directors, with Geely's Tong Xiangbei becoming the venture's global chief executive. Geely has expanded rapidly through mergers and acquisitions since buying Sweden's Volvo in 2010 from U.S. parent Ford. In 2018, it built a stake of almost 9.7% in Daimler and set up a ride-hailing venture in China with the Stuttgart-based carmaker. Its latest announcement comes just over a month after China's Great Wall and Germany's BMW formed a venture to build electric Mini-branded cars in China, the world's biggest market for electrified vehicles where demand for smaller EVs is on the rise. Related Video: