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Smart Cars Coming to Canada and U.S.
AgniTheSane writes "Most importantly the Smart Car looks cool. It also gets 60 mpg, is four feet
smaller than a Mini Cooper (you can park two in a standard parking spot), the
plastic panels are easily swappable and one color all the way through (so you
can't scratch the paint), the steel frame makes it safe in an accident, and you
can get it with in-dash Bluetooth (and in Europe can read and write email via
the car speakers and a microphone). The Smart car is coming to the US soon, and will cost as little as $12,000. You can read about it in
Wired or on
MSNBC, or you can go straight
to ZAP who will be
selling them in the US soon, or the smart car
website in the UK. "
Provided the accident is a frontal collision with a Mercedes Benz sedan, like in the publicity video, with the Mercedes' crumple zone absorbing all the impact.
While meant as a joke, there is too much truth to this statement (the giving up SUVs part, that is). Especially in larger cities that have a widespread suburban sprawl (like Dallas, Houston, LA, Seattle, Atlanta) that makes owning a bigger car easier, if not something of a status symbol. In cities where parking space is a premium or driving to work doesn't regularly involve an hour+ commute, people may jump on these cars, but we Yanks like big cars to cart our big families around in.
Then again, I figured that only teenage girls would buy the MINI, and I see those things all over the place.
Zero to sixty in twenty seconds?
These things are going to need all the crash protection they can get. They're going to get flattened on any highway on-ramp.
...It is not user-serviceable without a proprietary toolset.
Jokes about comparing proprietary software to a car with the hood welded shut are very chilling if this car is the beginning of a trend.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
A few years later I heard things like great mileage, funky distinct design, low price, reliable, and most importantly able to park it in the tiniest of spaces.
I don't think that the SMART will ever be the cross country driving car of choice, but as a second car in the city for the 2 parent working family I think its a brilliant idea . . . Why drive a 4000 pound SUV to pick up a gallon of milk at the supermarket if you don't have to?
Not actually 'free', but subsidised. Either your employer, your bank, the mall, or your town paid for the land, paid to have it paved, pays to have it maintained and striped routinely. Unless vast expanses of asphalt just appear by magic, someone is paying for it. And that someone is almost always us, either directly or indirectly.
Money that could go elsewhere.
Here's the trends from the Centers for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/prev _char.htm
This is over and above those who are just considered overweight.Back on-topic, the car weights 1500 pounds. You won't see it hauling 2 300-pounders with a sub-700cc motor. Then again, as gas prices keep doubling, Mr. and Mrs. Lard-belly won't have the $$$ to both stuff their faces AND run their 8mpg SUVs/cattle haulers, so either they or their vehicles are going on a diet, one way or another.
Which is why we hear of so accidents involving Mack Trucks and Yugos that end badly for the over-the-road truck driver.