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A quirky proposition | 2017 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive First Drive

I want to cruise around with the person who's perfect for the new 2017 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive. The pocketable EV is, as we've said before, more of an accessory than it is practical transportation. I think that the person who wants not only a Smart car but the electric one is a person I'd like to hang out with. This is a fun and quirky little plug-in, and I'm pretty sure that whoever buys one has a combination of a sense of humor and environmentalism I can vibe with. Smart says that it is a pioneer of electric drive vehicles, and that's true to a degree. The brand was conceived as an electric one, so points for history there, but leadership then does not equal leadership now. Just look at the official Smart ED page, which still shows the old model ED, or remember that the the electric model's launch in the US has been delayed. Instead of the promised "late 2016," the ED will now arrive some time in the spring of 2017. The good news is that the car is worth the wait, with a few caveats. If the Fortwo is naturally a city car, the Fortwo ED is a you-better-believe-it a city car. The ED is powered by a 17.6-kWh lithium-ion battery with 17.2 kWh of usable energy. That's good for a whopping 100 miles of range ... but only in Europe where they use the NEDC test cycle. Here in the US, expect to see about 70 or 80 miles from the EPA (The current model, based on the previous-gen Fortwo, gets 68 miles). Given that limitation, this is not the car that wants to wander far from the skyscrapers. You won't either, in one of these, because you'll be having too much fun winning traffic. Zippy on steroids is a fair way to describe the fun acceleration you can get from a Fortwo ED. Sure, the 0-60 time isn't record-breaking (in fact, it's a leisurely 11.5 seconds to get to 62 miles per hour), but the 0-30 time is what matters in the stoplight-to-stoplight sprint (the ED goes zero-to-60 kilometers per hour, or 37 mph, in 4.9 seconds). There's only a tiny an 81-horsepower electric motor that provides 118 pound-feet of torque, but when it's placed over the traction axle in a small and light rear-wheel drive car like this, that's plenty to push your keister into the seat. If you're otherwise going to be maneuvering around delivery trucks and SUVs, at least stomping the accelerator will put a smile on your face. Speaking of fun, the tight, 22.8-foot turning radius is no joke. The first time you experience it, you will utter a word you were not meaning to say.

Smart hopes to jump-start brand by offering cheapest electric car

Bloomberg has reported that Daimler is looking at the Smart ForTwo Electric Drive to recharge the division's relevance and brand perception, and part of how the ForTwo ED will do that is by being the first mass-produced and the least expensive German electric car on the market. Some context: Bloomberg says the brand seeks 10,000 annual sales for its electron-powered runabout, which is just 10 percent of Smart global sales. More important than how many ForTwo EDs are sold, however, would be the fact that by beating the BMW i3 and electric Volkswagen e-Up! to market, it would "re-establish the brand's position as an urban mobility pioneer with the first mass-produced electric auto from a German manufacturer."
At least, that's the plan - one that we're inclined to file under "Things That Make You Go Hmmm...." We enjoyed our time in the ForTwo ED; the electric drivetrain was a perfect fit and remedied what is perhaps the principal gripe with the current car (in the U.S., at least) - its less-than-smooth transmission. Nevertheless, even though people open to electric cars and the premiums that electric and range-extended vehicles command, we have a feeling that Smart's pricing will continue to make it tough for the little guy to compete.
A conventional Smart starts at €10,275 ($13,489 U.S.) in Germany, and a conventional VW Up! is €9,850 ($12,931 U.S.). The ForTwo ED has been priced at €18,910 ($24,824 U.S.) plus €65 ($85.33 U.S.) per month for the battery - and we'd be surprised if VW didn't make sure the larger, plusher e-Up! was right there with it. The Renault Zoe - not German, we know - will be slightly more expensive at €20,600 (around $27k), plus a monthly fee for the battery, but the Zoe is a four-door hatchback the size of a Clio. Pricing for this landmass hasn't been announced, but the electric competition generally hits the mid-$30K mark: the four-door, four-seat Mitsubishi i-MiEV sets the low end at $29,625, the Nissan Leaf at $35,200, the BMW i3 is rumored to come in around $35,000, the Fiat 500E is predicted to be right there, too, and that's supposedly after Fiat swallows a hefty loss on each car. Chevrolet sets the high bar with the range-extended Volt at $39,145.

Smart runs a Forfour out of town on rails

What's smarter, driving a city car to get where you're going, or taking the train? The answer likely depends on where you live, where you're going, and how good the train service is between the two points. But Smart is out to answer that question in its own way. The British division of Mercedes' kid brother has taken one of its new Forfours and modified it to run on rails. Not metaphorically handle like it's on rails, but actually drive on train tracks. You know, like an actual train. Only smaller. Much, much smaller. Where a locomotive might have a 17-liter engine and weigh 70 metric tons, the Smart comes in with less than one by both counts. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, Smart says it took six months of engineering and computer-aided design work to get it all lined up. The company teamed up with British train-builder Interfleet for the conversion process that necessitating replacing the rolling stock with 22-inch solid steel wheels weighing around 180 pounds a piece, disconnecting the steering, and welding aluminum supports between the axles to lock everything in place. The result was dubbed the Smart Forrail. It was demonstrated on a 10-mile stretch of railroad through Sussex, UK, run by the privately operated Bluebell Railway. But after the demonstration was done and the video above was shot, the vehicle was converted back to road-going specification. Which is a bit of a shame, because just once we'd like to get into a car (with the engine in the back, no less) and say to a confused passenger: "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads." A SMARTER WAY TO GET FROM A TO B: THE smart forrail Note: Do not try this at home... The new smart forfour is a pretty effective point-to-point machine. It can drive from London to Aberdeen non-stop for as little as GBP39. Its four occupants will be comfy on the 540-mile journey too, even if they're significantly taller than the car is wide. The smart forfour is tiny on the outside, yet clever engineering means its interior is vast and is packed with technology to help make the journey fun, relaxing and safe. It stands a good chance of being the ultimate commuting machine, were it not for one obvious rival. The forfour is reliant on roads, meaning the humble train has an obvious advantage in that it can get from point-to-point through a more direct route. When it comes to outright speed and ruthless efficiency, it's one-nil to the train. Not all is lost, though.