I want one! Seeing that U.S. gas prices look like they’re going to match European prices, why can’t we have this nifty little car?
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/pictures/viewer$674
I’ll bet they get awesome mileage. But we probably have some sort of regulations (sponsored by GM) to keep these cars out of the U.S., no doubt. Any motorheads out there have the inside scoop?
I think there is another thread about the Smart, but the board’s too slow for me to look for it now.
IIRC, the reason that the Smart is not for sale in the U.S. is, according to U.S. automakers, that the American public don’t want small cars. They want big, comfortable, luxurious cars.
Sounds like the same thing they were saying in the 1970s before the Japanese thrashed them in sales.
OTOH, there may be safety considerations. Cars sold here must prove their crashworthiness. (Having see the results of a couple of Chevy (later Geo) Sprint wrecks, I can’t imagine the collision standards can be too stringent for small cars.
I like the Smart too. It’s not ideal for the type of driving I do, but if my living/working situation were different I’d consider buying one.
Here is a possible reason - pricehttp://smartstore.uk.com/quote.html
Lots of money for such a small vehicle.
Yes, we definitely need those over here! The original idea came from Switzerland, you know. (A joint venture between Swatch - the watch company - and Daimler-Benz - now Daimler-Chrysler) Originally the cars were made so that one could easily change external body parts to change the colour of your car. I don’t know if that’s still true. They have their own web page:
http://www.smart.com
The car is only 2.5 metres long! I’ve seen them on the streets in Switzerland and they’re great for parking. I was going to rent one but the car rental agency was out of them.
Daimler-Chrysler would do well to encourage the Smart car division. This article says that Smart Cars were doing well, especially compared to the other divisions.
I saw one for sale once in a dealership in Newport Beach, California, USA, but I didn’t go in to ask the price. It was a dealership selling expensive cars to the rich. I don’t know how they ended up with a Smart Car.
Probably the same reason no one else is introducing new small cars into the US market:
No one buys them. The market for such small cars in the US is very small. What other cars are in that market space? The Toyota Echo, the Suzuki Swift/Chevy Metro, and probably the new Mini. Certainly the Toyota and the Suzuki have dismal sales numbers. The Ford Aspire has been cancelled and the Chevy is certainly next.
Can’t make them pass the crash tests. The small cars of Europe and Japan aren’t built with the same safety standards of the US market. A lot of work would need to be done to make them pass.
They cost too much. Since they are low volume and high cost to modify for the US market. Their competition is the Ford Focus, Saturn SL, Corolla, Protege, Civic, all of which can be had for roughly the same price and you get a lot more for your money.
I agree I would definately buy a car like that… I don’t really drive anyone around or anything… and I would love the gas mileage. (can’t complain about gas prices after I realized that they are $4-5 in europe and a whole 1.75 down the street here). And they DO move, I saw one doing about 90 MPH on an Autobahn in Germany. And they would be easy to park… you even see them nose toward the curb parked.
$8000 for a souped-up golf cart? Are you kidding??? I am not opposed to the idea, but the price, whoa!
Well Tretiak, that’s less than half the price of a new Beetle.
Well a Beetle ridiculously over-priced.
The Smart (I’ve seen them in France) is a 2-seater with nearly no storage space. It doesn’t cost much more to get a much more practical vehicle, with not a lot more size. The Fiat Panda and Renault Twingo are examples, and there seem to be a lot more of those over there. Even the old, reliable Citroen 2CV and whoever-the-hell-these-days Mini are probably better buys.
But I don’t think any of the above would last long in the States, at least in the North, as everyday drivers. Our roads are too potholed, too much salt gets on them in futile attempts to get rid of too much snow.
Also, their visibility is too poor - other drivers here are too used to seeing real cars in their mirrors, and a Smart would be almost as easy to miss as a motorcycle. In Europe, there are few cars all that much larger, so the safety factor of different sizes isn’t as severe.
Crashworthiness has already been mentioned, but emissions limits haven’t. If you hang a catalytic converter etc. on an engine that small, your power becomes reduced intolerably. When gas costs only 1/3 of what it does in Europe, it’s just not worth considering.
I’d prefer a Renault R5 Turbo2. Performs similar to a Corvette, but costs about half as much.
In the US, the Smart would be good for dense urban areas such as LA, Chicago or NYC.
But motorcycles are small and dangerous and you can cripple yourselves easily on them, and there are plenty of them on the roads.
Thanks for the link, Arnie. I forgot how cute I found these little buggers back in Paris. The first one we saw was black, and sitting in it (it was parked) was a little black French bulldog. A tres chic Parisian lady walked up and got into the car and putted away. I’ve wanted a Smart car ever since!
90 m.p.h.! I wouldn’t have believed it. Though I wouldn’t use one for zooming about on the interstate; I’d commute on our cramped Bay Area roads or drive around in downtown San Francisco (assuming they have the oomph to go up Hyde Street). If they decide to try to sell these in the U.S., a good place to commence marketing would be in the Bay Area. And I wouldn’t mind paying the price for one; I’d just make it up in gas savings.
Price for gas in San Francisco 4/24/01: $2.05 a gallon and climbing.
You don’t really want a Smart. If you had seen the photos of the silly things standing on their asses on the highway the first winter they were out, then you would understand. The stupid things have the motor placed too high above and behind the rear axle, which makes them unstable. 90mph in a Smart <<Shudder.>>
P.S.
I live in Germany where there are a lot of the silly little bugs.
The main trouble with the Smart is that it’s designed for a Euro situation: Lottsa small towns, narrow roads, no one has to drive long distances carrying serious loads: They go to where they’re going, and buy what they need locally. Here in the States, with our propensity for living far from where we work, diving long distances at a moment’s notice, and not placing our housing around community shopping, a general-purpose automobile makes more sense, and is far more acceptable to the market, as a whole. In the places where they’d make good sense, say, for people who live and work inside a large city, there’s already a culture of using mass transit, which is cheaper still.
I’ve seen some of the hybrid vehicles on my commute, and here in the States, they make more sense, in most areas. Even still, they’re a niche market.
just my $0.02
Smart may be putting out feelers to see if Canadians in the congested Toronto area are interested in them.
I can’t think of many areas outside the crowded cities where they might be viable, but they’d be ideal for light delivery, car sharing, and as a runabout in Toronto. Stay tuned…
Saying “you can get much more car for just a little more money” is missing the point. The Smart is sold exactly because it’s not a lot of car. There are people who’d rather not have a lot of car. Some of them will even pay for having just a small measure of rather nice car.
The Smart maneuvers in congested streets. It has pretty decent fuel economy. It’ll park in spots you wouldn’t believe. It’s built and furnished with a nice quality feel to it - this isn’t a “souped-up golf cart”, it’s designed from the ground up to transport one or two people with a modest amount of luggage in urban areas. And for that purpose - the “home-office-supermarket-gym-home” trek - it’s pretty damn good.
Its natural environment is the large urban area. Where parking is a pain in the rearside and commuters, one to a car, take up an inordinate amount of space on busy roads while burning inordinate amounts of fuel.
ElvisL1ves:
All Smarts are equipped with a 3-way catalytic converter and live up to the EU3 emissions standard, which, AFAIK, is pretty strict.
As for safety, the Smart has been tested as being on par with other small cars. A large car does have more metal to crumble and can be made safer, obviously. A Volvo this ain’t. Then again, in the urban environment, speeds are (or should be) low.
Invisibility ? It’s way taller, wider and longer than a motorcycle. I have complete faith in the average American drivers ability to discover an object of that size.
It sure has its pros & cons, but saying it’s not a big car is not an argument against it. It’s the reason for buying it.
S. Norman
Ummm.— No, More is more 
Seriously, I think most people (at least in the US) would rather get more for the same money than less.
If you go down to San Jose and out to Livermore, the Bay area is huge and other than rush hour the highways move at 75 mph. Are you going to have another car for those times you want to leave the city?
Yes, but motorcycles are fun, and can easily travle at 75 MPH on the highway unlike small econoboxes. Plus most motorcycles can out accelerate & handle just about any car on the road, allowing the rider to quickly get away from idiots. Of course if the idiot is sitting on the motorcycle, it doesn’t work.
Here is an old thread discussing this – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=59072
I think the main answers have already given, American highways are not suited to these tiny little cars, and it makes no sense to buy an extra car just for short trips.
Anachronism:
Then why do I see laptops and cell phones getting smaller, instead of larger? More does not necessarily mean bigger.
Granted, in the USA, parking and street size is generally not a problem, and gas prices are low enough that most people don’t worry about economizing fuel. Nevertheless, even in some locations in the USA, a car like the Smart may be useful. As has been mentioned before, compact cars did not immediately catch on in this country.
Advantages of a smaller car:
Disadvantages of a smaller car:
I’m sure people can add more to either list. Of the two advantages listed above, the first isn’t really an issue to most people living outside the city. It’s never really been a problem for me.
The gas mileage issue is, IMO, almost a wash. What is the expected MPG of the Smart car? You can buy a VW Beetle, Golf, Jetta, Suzuki Swift, or Toyota Echo or Corolla that all get over 40 MPG on the highway. Plus there are the two hybrid cars that list out at over 50 average MPG. Check out http://www.fueleconomy.gov/ for more info.
Unless parking is really a huge issue, and it isn’t for most people, it seems to me that other features and considerations take over. In European cities, there may be other concerns.
I left off the Honda Civic HX from the list of cars that get over 40 MPH.
In case people get the wrong idea, I like small cars. I drive a Saturn Wagon, and fuel economy is an important concern for me with every car I buy. I wish they would sell the Smart Car in the US, but I don’t think the economics justify it from a business sense. I’m sure it would be the right car for some people, just not enough of them.
For the US market, I think there is a minumum size that people will accept. I’d love it if that minimum became smaller (and the maximum became much, much smaller) but I don’t see that happening any time soon.