(Pocket-lint) – Smart’s quirky little cars have always been urban centric, originally designed around personalisation and offering something different. With Mercedes behind the design, a partnership with Geely in 2019 has now resulted in a new generation of Smart – the Smart #1.
The hashtag in the name should give an inkling as to the target audience – young, social media natives. That’s not too far removed from the original Smart concept, but now designed for a new era.
The Smart #1 is electric, with a motor driving the rear wheels, and a design that’s evolved to give a larger interior space for up to five passengers. There’s floating roof design, flush door handles and interesting lights to the front.
Sitting on 19-inch wheels, it moves Smart into a more competitive segment, appealing to those who might have been turned off by the diminutive previous models.
While interior space has increased, there’s still only 273-litres of trunk space, so it’s not huge, but that might well suit the urban user. There’s a 15-litre frunk as well.
What you do get, however, is a 66kWh battery, which is pretty big for the size of this car – and results in a given range figure of up to 273 miles.
There’s a 200kW motor, so we suspect it will be pretty fast off the line, while there’s support for charging at up to 150kW. That suggests that this is going to be a practical everyday electric car for urban and suburban drivers.
There’s an array of digital displays inside, with a 9.2-inch display for the driver, along with 10-inch heads-up display, while the centre display is 12.8 inches.
It all looks very modern, with ambient lighting and a floating dash design. There’s also a panoramic glass roof and a 13-speaker Beats sound system.
There’s going to be plenty of driver assistance, connected features so you can share digital keys with your friend and so on.
It looks like a great addition to the electric cars already on the road. What we don’t yet know is how much it will cost and when you’ll be able to buy it.
Writing by Chris Hall.