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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. "
Yanks won't give up their monstrous SUVs for these. Too insecure about their sexuality.
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.
And also it doesn't have cupholders for the giant Slurpees that you lot consume. Nor is it powerful enough to propel 250lbs of excess flab that most USians have.
For all those screaming about security - this car has been specifically designed to be safe despite it's size; to achieve this, there are certain tricks involved, eg sliding the motor under the chassis in case of a crash.
It _has_ been rigourously tested.
You know, we here in Europe do make more out of less and don't need a 2 Ton SUV to have a save car.
I live in Switzerland and had the possibility to test drive one of the two seats model.
Positive points:
- looks cool
- each passenger has a lot of room (really)
Negative points:
- automatic shift is very slow, it is dangerous and reduces confort (it brakes the car during the shift)
- the vertical construction implies rather hard suspensions, with reduced confort (you feel every bump in the road in your spine)
- noisy inside
- pricy
In Europe you can find lots of small cars that have a comparable MPG (or better km/l), have 4 seats and are cheaper.
To sum it up, coolness factor aside, I would not reccomend it.
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?
The American 'aesthetic' sense rears its ugly head again.
And when they hit another SUV, everybody dies.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
>>problem is, when they hit a Smart even slighly, they kill the occupant.
There's an upside, however. In the event of a collision, the Smart folds conveniently into the shape of a coffin.
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.
Also, you might want to check out this: http://www.insidercarsecrets.com/women.html
Or the stats a bit further down the page:
So it's a "chick car". So what? That's what people said about the new Mini - but I see guys snapping them up, and their girlfriends love 'em.A woman isn't going to get all gushy over you 'cause you have a 454 under the hood. She'll just think you're another one of those "horsepower substitutes for penis" idiots.
Which is why we hear of so accidents involving Mack Trucks and Yugos that end badly for the over-the-road truck driver.
(disclaimer, I just Swapped my For2-shape Smart for a Smart Roadster) The Smart is actually one of the safest small cars there is thanks to the stridion safety cage, ands also since you can't t-bone one between the wheels in anything wide than a motorbike, due to the short wheelbase.
Smart were well aware that the car looks easy to break, so they put a LOT of effort into safety. I've seen pictures of a from end collision between a Samrt and a Mercedes E-class, the Merc was a write-off, while the Smart drove away.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Of the two, I would have certainly preferred to be in the Smart. Of course, cars tend to fare better when hit from behind, but even so, the disparity in damage caused was incredible. I always thought that Smarts looked really fragile, being used to old Citroens and Volvos (which are can run over armoured personnel carriers with barely a scratch), but this was impressively strong.
They still look like they'd flip up and lie on their tailgates, though.
The moms love the SUVs coz they feel safe - problem is, when they hit a Smart even slighly, they kill the occupant.
Not necessarily. Smart is designed with safety in mind and has pretty good crash test results. Don't forget that crash tests describe only the passive safety (can you survive when bad things happen?), while Smart excels in active safety (can you avoid the bad things to happen in the first place?). I was driving a rented one on a business trip and the thing is agile like a TIE-fighter. Unless you're asleep at the wheel, you will be able to make an evasive manoeuvre avoiding getting hitted by the SUV.
On the other hand, large SUVs are hopeless in active safety (a pick-up truck with a wagon-like interior will always remain a pick-up truck in terms of agility), they prone to rollover and the frame chassis does not add to passive safety, contrary to popular belief. Yes, the chassis will remain untouched by a minor collision, but it does not mean your spine will remain untouched as well. If someone drops you in a steel cage from a steep cliff, the cage might itself remain untouched on the bottom - but your spine probably won't. Modern cars wreck so horribly precisely because the chassis takes all the energy that would otherwise release - among other things - on your spine. It's no wonder that the safest 4x4 according to NHTSA is subaru forester. It's a car-based SUV that gets totally wrecked in a crash - but that's because the driver leaves from collision in perfectly good health. Someone has to explain this to all the SUV moms...
Lighter is safer. Ask any traffic engineer.
Reduce braking distance
Having done any research into vehicle safety would reveal this (though, admittedly, I didn't mention it, presuming that anyone with a iota of physics background would take this for granted): Even though you can't reduce reaction time, the next most important factor in traffic safety is braking distance, which is directly proportional to mass. You stop faster with less weight.
Accident avoidance
After that, I understand the next most important safety factor is avoidance, a function of lateral traction, proportional to tire width, gumminess, and closeness of the axels, and inversely proportional to mass. The less your mass, the more lateral traction. If you can avoid or stop before the accident, the odds of a detrimental accident decrease.
Functions of time
So, as you say, "it's not the speed that kills you, it's the sudden stop", the Smart Car simply slows faster prior to the sudden stop, so when that sudden stop happens, you're going much slower. Safety as a human function is directly proportional to the time of the stages in an accident: realization, reaction, braking or avoidance, and impact. More effective braking and avoidance make your time more useful.
Crumple zones
Albeit, in a smaller vehicle, there is a small but substantial increase in the potentially vital impact component. However, if you put a 730kg (1600lb) vehicle (the Smart car) against an average vehicle sized sedan at 1500kg (3300lb), the sedan will simply stop further away from the point where the driver realized and acted on an emergency situation. That distance translates into not just fewer accidents, but lower speed at the point of impact, hence less force involved in the impact, and hence fewer and less severe injuries.
Emperical questions
To measure the safety, you have to look at the merits of the differences between this vehicle and others. These merits are not necessarily obvious, involving at least:
* How do most accidents happen?
* How do most injuries happen? I believe the vast majority of accidents are rear-enders, which can be substantially reduced with better breaking distance and avoidance.
* How many vehicle accidents are related to inadequate lateral traction?
* Does the increase in avoidance and braking capacity result in fewer accidents?
* Lower the cost insurance?
* Lower fatalities? Of the owners? Of SUV drivers?
* Result in fewer fender-benders?
* How many are head-on collisions? (The only case where this vehicle would seem to be substantially less safe, isn't it? This is the case where momentum clashes and your body velocity goes from +X to -X)
Geneology of Driving
These are sort of anecdotal arguments that I've bought into: Humans aren't designed to acquire and react to information at speeds provided for by vehicles, though we have compensated very well. Two factors remain very good at making drivers more comfortable, and hence more adequate: visibility and fit. The more visiblity you have, the less compensation your brain has to do to make up for blind spots. The better you feel you have control of the vehicle, ie. how it 'fits' you, the less time your brain spend compensating for unresponsive or poorly responsive mechanics. However, a large car can have both of these. There is also a question of security; insecure drivers, ie. those in a smart car who are uncomfortable being surrounded by SUV's, may react poorly (or perhaps drive more cautiously; who's to say).
I hope that clarifies the reality and reveals to you how physics of lighter vehicles can, and typically emperically does, make them inherently safer. Bear in mind, the old Volvo tank model of safety has its merits, too. But the Smart Car is not a death trap, unlike nearly all SUV's (save the Subaru Forrester, in the USA, iirc).
All the same, in an accident where I need to walk away, I'll take my Mercedes or my old Volvo before I'd take some of the cheap, tinfoil crap I see on the road every day (not saying the the Smart is one). On top of that, at the price I paid for my car, I'm much more careful with my driving and keeping the car in top mechanical condition. Small, cheap, disposable cars tend to be more dangerous simply from the standpoint that their owners may not have the same "investment" in keeping it in one piece.
Also, having a rigid frame around the driver is a great idea IF there is something sacrificial around it to absorb the impact energy in an accident. I can build a car that's strong enough to withstand an impact and drive away, but you'd have to scrape the occupants out with a paper towel. I have some experience in this. I built an ultra-light aircraft for my wife and decided to make is extra strong. When she crashed it (pilot error), it took almost nothing to put the ultra-light back in the air. My wife, on the other hand, was almost killed and spent 2 years with countless surgeries recovering. The investigation concluded that had the aircraft structure been weaker and able to absorb the impact, she might have been able to walk away. Needless to say, I don't fly that one any more.
On the other side of the equation, I was filming from the back seat of an ultra-light for an instructional video when we augured in (yep, camera rolling - great footage!). There was nothing left of the plane. It practically disintegrated around us, but we both walked away. The pilot broke a bone in his hand and the restraint system left some really impressive bruises on me, but we were able to spend the night out and wait for rescue just fine. The aircraft I fly now is designed to absorb the impact of a crash (I've also added a ballistic parachute to it).
Last week I was early on the scene of an accident where I thought for sure someone would be dead. One of the cars looked like no-one could have survived. However, upon closer inspection the driver's compartment was entirely intact, with several airbags deployed. The driver was standing a short distance away, talking to one of the other people one the scene. He looked shaken, but [apparently] unhurt. The other car look like it was in better condition, but the driver was still sitting in it (and was being attended to - so I didn't get any closer).
It sucks big-time to have your car looking like a grotesque piece of $50,000 modern art, but seeing your kid getting safely out: priceless!
:-)
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution