Smart News

Remember how we told you that in recent history, automakers have made a handful of three-cylinder engines, and all but the one in the 2014 Ford Fiesta 1.0-liter EcoBoost were terrible? One of the culprits was the ...    Read more

With the auto show season at an end, automakers have started to deliver new models and sales for April continue to break records. As summer is right around the corner, there is no doubt that the convertibles and sports cars will be in high demand in the months to come. ...    Read more

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Smart has never been the success story Daimler, Mercedes-Benz's parent company, hoped it would be. Since entering the U.S. in the mid-2000s, the brand has gone on to sell a few thousand cars a year. You can blame that on having just one product to sell in the U.S.--the ...    Read more

At the Shanghai Auto Show this past week, Smart again showed off the Forjeremy, an extremely limited special edition created in collaboration with fashion designer Jeremy Scott. The concept will now be heading into limited series production and will be available as a coupe with an emission-free electric drive, BRABUS ...    Read more

The first month of 2013 is already in the books and it's already mimicking what we saw in 2012. Chrysler Group reported a profit of $1.7 billion in 2012, up from $183 million in 2011, and momentum continues to flow in 2013 as two of its brands (Dodge ...    Read more

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Hybrid and electric vehicles have many positives, primarily fuel economy. An electric motor generates all the necessary power to get up and go, without the assistance of a noisy gasoline engine. But that lack of noise is one of the drawbacks: the absence of engine noise means pedestrians have a ...    Read more

Fiscal cliff, schmishcal schmiff. There was a late sense of fear felt in the U.S. economy that capped what has been the best sales year in the auto industry since 2007. As cars and houses are the U.S.'s primary movers and shakers, there was an underlying sense that if credit ...    Read more

Light-duty vehicles and planes are about to share something in common: data recorders. Airplanes already have a data recorder--colloquially known as a "black box"--that records real-time flight data which is relied upon in the event of an accident. Now, all new light-duty cars and trucks may required to carry a ...    Read more

November couldn't have posed a more challenging month for automakers this side of another economic collapse. The Big 3 were under scrutiny from politicians during election season, and that only intensified as Republican candidate Mitt Romney told the American public that ...    Read more

All good things will eventually come to an end. Such is the case with the October sales month, a clear signal that the summer sales months that culminated with record sales abound were gone and will return with the budding of new leaves, melting of snow, and temperatures greater than ...    Read more

Mercedes-Benz recently announced pricing information of its Smart Fortwo electric drive for 2013. Scheduled to go on sale sometime early next year, the 2013 Smart ED coupe will start at $25,000, not including the $750 destination and handling fee. The $25,750 price tag makes the 2013 Smart Fortwo one of the ...    Read more

When we saw the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive that debuted today at the Paris Motor Show, the first thing we thought was, "Wow, that's really blue." Then we got to the numbers sheet. It should be amazing. That's because it'll have nearly 750 horsepower combined coming from an electric motor at ...    Read more

The Highway Loss Data Institute is a little-known but vital affiliate to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The HLDI monitors insurance claims made by car owners involved in accidents as well as other forms of damage to their vehicle (e.g., theft). In the HLDI's most recently released study on ...    Read more

In the City of Lights a star is born—or rather, the ForStars—will be born. Expected to debut at the upcoming Paris Auto Show later this month, Smart will be debuting its newest concept, the Smart ForStars. The microcar company loves concepts and seems to have an endless stock of them, ...    Read more

The crush of seven billion people on earth, coupled with an increasing trend towards urbanization, is affecting the way we think about mobility and transportation. European style microcars have arrived in the U.S., automakers are experimenting with varied technologies and fuels, and no one solution seems to have been decided ...    Read more

There's an age-old argument among car enthusiasts that you have to sacrifice horsepower to get higher miles-per-gallon and vice versa. While this may be true with powerful V-6 and V-8 engines, the equation blurs when you look into turbocharged four-cylinder engines, hybrid powertrains, electric motors, and "range extenders". To find out ...    Read more

What's more awesome than a Smart ForTwo? A Smart ForTwo that's been decked out by the high-performance aftermarket tuner Brabus, of course. Don't get too excited though because it's not likely to come over to America any time soon. While it has already been on-sale in Europe (and done very ...    Read more

The Smart ForTwo electric car will be getting a sibling. This new companion is not another Smart EV, the third generation of which goes into production later this year. No, this new electric car will be for Mercedes-Benz, Smart's more "upscale" brethren. The Mercedes-Benz B-Class EV will arrive here in the ...    Read more

Apple's Siri voice command took consumer electronics to new heights with its natural voice recognition system. Automakers were suddenly sent scrambling to update their infotainment systems, which looked hopelessly antiquated with their so-called "gateway commands" (e.g., "Radio on") and stilted command tree (e.g. "Play disc two, track three."). Nuance Mobile has ...    Read more

While the press keeps hammering how most of Middle America is in the dumps, losing jobs, can't find jobs, grossly obese because they can't find a job, etc., apparently there were just a few still gainfully employed and able to secure their favorite cars and crossovers from ze Germans automakers ...    Read more

Almost a decade and a half ago the Smart ForTwo ruled the microcompact segment when it was first introduced back in 1998. Its reign was short-lived however as it was overthrown in 2001 by BMW's newly reintroduced MINI brand. Fast-forward almost 15 years later and the microcompact segment has gotten ...    Read more

Conventional wisdom held that 2011 would be the year of the compact car. Instead, it was a year of disaster, frustration, and not atypically—hope. But everyone already knows 2011's great story: tsunami, earthquake, floods, and burying the past. It's that last part, plus summer's annual focus on the next production ...    Read more

If you were planning on Smarting around a little this summer, you may have to wait a little longer. The electric Smart ForTwo launch is being held back on account of a delay in battery cell production according to Automotive News Europe. If you're looking to get into the electric ...    Read more

Zurich based Rinspeed isn't interested in making cars for the one percent—. actually based on its previous concepts you'd think it was more interested in making cars for 0.0000001-percent. But we'd like to salute these innovators. Hailing from a country best known for Alpine skiing, neutrality, and famous watches, you'd ...    Read more

Details are hazy, but this is what we know, or rather what we think we know: Smart is planning to show us a flatbed pickup truck concept at the Detroit auto show next month. The automaker of pint-sized cars says of its Smart ForUs concept, "this is the right car ...    Read more