All-new fully electric SUV is the first offering from a radically reborn brand On sale Autumn 2023 Price from £35,000 (est)
Doug Revolta Doug.Revolta@haymarket.com
FIRST DRIVE
THE SMART BRAND and tiny cars for city folk go together like baggy jeans and the 1990s, but Smart’s image could be about to change. And to be honest, that’s not a bad thing.
You see, while some were taken by the idea of a car you could park nose-on to the kerb, the two-seat Fortwo’s novelty quickly wore thin once its hard ride, jerky gearboxes and dreadful practicality were taken into account. And while Smart’s rebirth as an all-electric brand in 2018 brought new relevance, the Smart EQ Fortwo and the longer, five-seat EQ Forfour were let down by an appallingly short battery range.
The Smart #1 (pronounced ‘Hashtag One’) represents a clean slate. It comes after Smart’s owner, Mercedes-Benz, partnered with Chinese car maker Geely to develop a new line-up of electric models, with Mercedes taking care of the design and Geely (owner of Volvo for more than a decade) looking after the engineering.
The #1 is the first fruit of this joint venture. It’s an electric SUV that will compete with the likes of the Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Niro EV, MG ZS EV and Peugeot e-2008. It might also tempt Cupra Born and Volkswagen ID 3 buyers, even though those models aren’t SUVs.
The #1 arrives in two flavours. The regular version has a single electric motor that sends 268bhp and 253lb ft of torque to the rear wheels. Those numbers bring a zippy 0-62mph time of 6.7sec, which would comfortably see off its closest electric SUV competitors in a drag race.
If that’s not enough, though, the #1 Brabus you see in our pictures also has an electric motor at the front to give it four-wheel drive and a total of 422bhp and 400lb ft of torque. The result is a blistering official 0-62mph time of 3.9sec. For similar straight-line pace among electric SUVs, you’ll need to look at the much bigger Kia EV6 GT or Tesla Model Y Performance.
With a 64kWh (usable) battery, the standard version can officially travel for 273 miles before it needs a charge. That’s a lot farther than the 214-mile e-2008, but it’s eclipsed by the 300-mile Kona Electric. The #1 Brabus, meanwhile, promises 248 miles, sacrificing a bit of range for that extra pace. Both models can be charged at a rate of up to 150kW, with a 10-80% top-up taking around half an hour from a suitably powerful
