Smart has revealed the Final Collector's Edition based on its ForTwo city car, marking the last run of combustion-powered vehicles for the micro car specialist before it switches to full e-mobility. Just 21 examples of these special editions will be produced, developed in collaboration with industrial designer, Konstantin Grcic...
Daimler has confirmed Smart will leave the US and Canadian markets by the end of the 2019, but the automaker will continue to provide support for existing cars through its Mercedes-Benz dealership network. The German automaker told TechCrunch, "After much careful consideration, Smart will discontinue its battery-electric Smart EQ ForTwo model in the US and Canadian markets at the conclusion of MY2019"...
Daimler and Geely have agreed to form a joint venture company to run Smart, with each firm owning 50 per cent and having three seats on the board of directors. As was planned before today's announcement, Smart will become an all-electric brand from 2020 onwards. It will also continue to focus on inner city-friendly vehicles, although the "product portfolio is also planned to be extended into the fast-growing B-segment"...
Three sources have told The Financial Times Daimler, owner of Mercedes-Benz, is close to selling a 50 per cent stake in the Smart brand to Chinese automaker Geely. A deal could be announced as soon as the Shanghai motor show, which takes place in the middle of April. If the sale goes ahead, it would fit both Smart's future vision for itself and Geely's acquisitive streak...
A report from Handelsblatt states Daimler, owner of the Mercedes-Benz and Smart marques, will decide the fate of the city car brand by the end of the year. The decisive moves will take place from May onwards, when Ola Kallenius, currently Daimler's head of research and development, takes over from Dieter Zetsche...
BMW and Mercedes-Benz are the second pair of automakers to confirm a partnership this week, after Ford and Volkswagen announced they will work together on utes and vans. The companies announced their intent to combine mobility divisions last year, but approval from anti-trust regulators has only just come through...
Mercedes-Benz has ordered €20 billion ($31 billion) worth of lithium-ion battery cells, which will see the company through until 2030. The German automaker expects battery-electric vehicles to account for between 15 and 25 per cent of its annual sales by 2025. To put that into context, the company sold a total of 3.3 million vehicles in 2017...
Smart will celebrate its 20th anniversary at the 2018 Paris motor show with the drop-top ForEase concept. Following in the footsteps of the crossblade and forspeed, the concept aims to offer passengers a "liberated and pure driving experience" by turfing the roof. There's no folding soft- or hard-top, it's just an old-fashioned speedster...
Brabus has revealed its latest take on the Smart ForTwo, in the form of the limited-edition 125R. Although power still comes from a three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, the boffins at Brabus have bumped outputs from 66kW and 135Nm to 93kW and 200Nm. The bump comes from a modified air intake, a new intercooler, and a recalibrated ECU...
Smart has officially been around for 20 years. The city-car maker burst onto the scene in July 1998, with a two-seater (the inventively named ForTwo) measuring just over 2.5m long. More than 2.2 million examples have been sold since then, across 46 markets around the world...
Dieter Zetsche, boss of Mercedes-Benz, has confirmed the Smart micro car brand will go all-electric in European markets by the end of the decade. Speaking at the company's annual shareholder's meeting, as reported by Carscoops, Daimler's little city car brand will only offer its electric vehicles (EV) in the coming years, following a similar move made in the North American market this year...
