Smart Electric no competition for Ford Focus Electric

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fordfocuselectric

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 25, 2010
Messages
113
The Smart Electric vehicle had some Ford Focus Electric vehicle supporters concerned - a range of 130-160 miles and a decent price would have put up some stiff competition for the Ford Focus EV.

However, EPA official testing of the car rates it's range at 60 miles - 40% less range than the Nissan Leaf and less than the expected range of the Ford Focus Electric.

When automakers decide to make an electric car, they have a choice of building something from the ground up, such as the Nissan Leaf, or adapting an existing platform, such as the Ford Focus Electric. Smart chose to adapt the current Fortwo chassis to accept an electric motor and batteries. However, Smart didn't even add a mileage indicator to let the driver know how much farther the car can drive - it does have a charge gauge but that doesn't seem quite as helpful.

Smart says the battery will charge in less than eight hours off of a 220-volt outlet, so expect substantially longer on a standard 110-volt source.

My bet is that the Ford Focus Electric will do better than the Smart Electric Drive.

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My expectation for the Focus EV is to have at least the same range (~100 miles) as the LEAF as well as be priced fairly closely otherwise they may not have enough takers who will make a direct comparison between the two -- unlike the Volt, the Focus EV is probably the closet (soon to market).

On the comments on the smart -- we happen to own an '08 smart fortwo passion coupe and from the early design days, smart always had an EV powertrain in mind -- this initial 250 units in the U.S. follows some tests over in Europe; still way too high for us for what it is ($599/mo for 48 months!) but MBZ does promise that a more widely available and better priced production EV smart will be out later ---perhaps those who lease a smart ED will be provided the same option as those people who leased the MINI E (BMW will allow them an option for the first BMW 1-series EV).

The smart web site shows what dealer's have an ED version and our two in Chicago simply don't have it -- there does however appears to be one in Milwaukee for those interested.
 
Seems like too much money for not enough car - but things can always change when an electric car actually hits the market so we'll have to wait and see!

A small little car like that should be able to get way more distance out of the same size battery pack that the Nissan Leaf or the Ford Focus Electric will have?!
 
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