Smart #2 prepares for its premiere, hoping to win the hearts of Europeans

The new two-seat electric car is the latest and most important model in the current development programme for the smart brand. The smart #2 is currently undergoing its final round of testing, with its premiere set for October at the Paris Motor Show.

The smart brand was born in 1994, with its debut model being a two-seat city car with a rear-mounted engine, the concept of which was developed by independent Swiss entrepreneur Nicolas Hayek, the creator of the Swatch watch brand. Initially, the smart brand was owned by Micro Compact Car AG (MMC), a joint venture between the then Daimler-Benz group and the Swiss Swatch Group, but by 1998 Daimler-Benz had fully absorbed MMC. The Germans then spent twenty years trying to make the smart brand profitable, but they never succeeded.

In 2019, the smart brand was handed over to the care of smart Automobile, a 50-50 joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Geely. Since then, Geely has been responsible for the engineering and production of all new smart models, while Mercedes-Benz has handled their design. With Geely's involvement, the smart brand was effectively relaunched from scratch; its current model line-up consists of the compact crossovers smart #1 and smart #3, the mid-size crossover smart #5, and the mid-size liftback smart #6. It was assumed that China would be the primary sales market for these models, but due to excessively high prices, demand has been far lower than expected.

Now, the smart brand is primarily targeting Europe, where it is most closely associated with the two-seat smart fortwo, which spanned three generations. Production of the third-generation smart fortwo ended in 2024, and it will soon be replaced by the smart #2. In April of this year, the smart #2 debuted as a concept car, and in June, some details of its interior design were revealed. The full premiere of the production smart #2 will take place in Paris in October, and in the meantime, the smart Automobile press office has released photographs of a pre-production car in camouflage wrap.

These photographs make it clear that the production smart #2 will largely mirror the concept car of the same name, but it will lack the latter's glamorous sheen. However, it promises sharp handling and a robust chassis capable of handling kerb mounting and driving over the centuries-old cobblestones of old European cities. The smart #2 has an overall length of 2792 mm and a turning radius of 6.95 metres.

The smart #2 is based on the ECA (Electric Compact Architecture) platform, developed specifically for this model. The powertrains will be purely electric, with a single electric motor mounted on the rear axle. The suspension is fully independent and coil-sprung. So far, the only technical specification announced is the maximum range on a single charge: 300 km under the WLTP cycle.

The success or failure of the smart #2 will largely depend on its price, about which there is no information yet. The smart #2 will be manufactured in China, so its price in Europe will include an increased import tariff. There have been rumours in Western media that production of the smart #2 could be established in Europe, but these have not yet received official confirmation.