- Smart’s original car is back.
- The all-new Smart #2 draws inspiration from the Fortwo.
- This time, however, Smart’s smallest car will be available exclusively as an EV.
The Smart brand made a name for itself in the late 1990s with its revolutionary Fortwo. The tiny, two-door city car was discontinued in 2024 after three generations, but the funky two-seater is now back for the electric age.
The all-new Smart #2 is the Fortwo’s successor, and we now know what the series version will look like, after China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) spilled the beans as part of its monthly list of new models that have been approved for production.
Photo by: MIIT
Back in April, Smart revealed the diminutive EV as a concept car, and I’m pleased to see that the production version will look pretty much the same, minus the cloth-like wheels and LED screens tucked to each side of the front bumper.
It looks pretty angry from the front, but that seems to be the norm when it comes to car design nowadays.
The Chinese-spec urban runabout is powered by a rear-mounted 80-horsepower (60-kilowatt) electric motor developed by Infimotion, with a floor-mounted lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery pack providing motivation. The individual cells are manufactured by CATL, but Geely, which owns half of the Smart brand, is responsible for the final assembly. (Mercedes-Benz owns the other half.)
The MIIT listing doesn’t include the battery capacity, but the automaker previously said that the European version of the new EV will get 35.7 kilowatt-hours, with a manufacturer-estimated driving range of about 186 miles (300 kilometers). That’s nearly triple compared to the old EQ Fortwo, which had an EPA-rated range of just 58 miles when it was sold as a 2017 model in the United States.
Charging will also be much faster than the now-discontinued model, with Smart claiming a 10-to-80% session takes less than 20 minutes. Vehicle-to-load (V2), which enables drivers to export energy from the high-voltage battery to power appliances or tools, will also be baked in.
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Source: MIIT
If the Chinese regulator’s photos aren’t proof enough that the new Smart #2 is tiny, then maybe some hard numbers will help. The two-door EV is 108.8 inches (2,764 millimeters) long, 65.7 in (1,669 mm) wide, and 61.2 in (1,555 mm) tall. The wheelbase stands at 73.8 in (1,875 mm).
According to the MIIT, the city EV tips the scales at 2,491 pounds (1,130 kilograms) and tops out at 87 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour). In other words, this is no Autobahn cruiser, but for tight city streets, it may be the best antidote to big, bulky SUVs.
The Smart #2 will be available in China and Europe, with a global debut scheduled for this year’s Paris Motor Show in October. Production will kick off after that in China, but the brand hasn’t ruled out localized production in Europe if it sells enough units to justify the investment. In Europe, prices are expected to start below €22,500 ($26,000).