Smart Car - Car Review

AJ Vickery: Well Mike and I rarely disagree on things, but I say throw the Hybrid away. We are going to talk about smart technology, well actually, we are going to talk about smart cars and help us understand that further, we've got Jeffrey Nelson. You are a Smart Cars specialist from Mercedes Benz, Canada. Jeffrey Nelson: Yes, I am. AJ Vickery: Well, thanks for joining us today. Jeffrey Nelson: No problem. AJ Vickery: So, we have obviously a small car here, Smart Car, very efficient. Jeffrey Nelson: Yes it is. AJ Vickery: How so? Jeffrey Nelson: It actually has a 1L or 999cc gas engine -- AJ Vickery: Ok. Jeffrey Nelson: Which is actually the most efficient standalone gas engine in Canada. So without the help of battery packs, this is the most fuel efficient vehicle. AJ Vickery: So it doesn't use battery like some of the Hybrid car? This is a full on gas engine but it can be just as efficient from a gas standpoint. Jeffrey Nelson: Exactly. AJ Vickery: Interesting, and is that partially do to it's the size. Jeffrey Nelson: It has a lot to do with the motor and also the weight of the car, because the car isn't that heavy, part of the reason for that is it has these Polycarbonate Panels here. These are also dent resistant and fully pigmented all the way through, so that means if you scratch it, still the same color underneath. AJ Vickery: You don't want me to test that out, though. Jeffrey Nelson: No, please sir and then also another reason, is the Tridion Safety Cell, this is the steel structure that encompasses the whole car. AJ Vickery: And you can sort of see that, it's going all around the vehicle here at that silver stripe. Jeffrey Nelson: Exactly. AJ Vickery: That's Tridion Safety. Jeffrey Nelson: Exactly. AJ Vickery: Ok. Jeffrey Nelson: What this also does is it makes you incredibly safe in this car. It acts like a steel nutshell. If you get hit by another vehicle, it distributes the shock throughout the whole vehicle making so that there is no intrusion into the cab and protecting you. AJ Vickery: And you are also telling me that from an efficiency standpoint, the way the car is manufactured is also quite green. Jeffrey Nelson: It actually only takes 3.5 hour to make the car. The reason for that is everything is made on site and they're on just-in-time basis. So that means that there is no waste of the energy involved in the production of the car. AJ Vickery: And that's a big factor, isn't it, because if you think about it, part of the way that these cars actually get on to the road can be very costly and very expensive and used up a lot of materials. Jeffrey Nelson: Exactly, it's a huge factory, it's located in Hambach, France and every thing from the tires to the Tridion Safety Cell, so electronics are all made there. AJ Vickery: Interesting! One more question, the tires I know it's pretty small, does that have anything to do with safety or efficiency? Jeffrey Nelson: It actually doesn't but what the car does have is a tire pressure monitor, which tells you when the tires are too low, as you probably know if your tires are low that means you are wasting a lot of fuel. So that means that when your tires are full, better efficiency and you should keep on rolling. AJ Vickery: Alright! Well, enough talk about the car, I want to drive this thing. Jeffrey Nelson: Ok, let's go. AJ Vickery: Let's do it. One of the things I was first impressed by was how much room there is inside the vehicle. I am pretty surprised because from outside, it looks like only the small people could fit into this. I am a fairly big size guy, I have tons of room. I think what you give up is any room in the back seat. You don't want to have to load your whole picnic basket and try to fit in the back because you will only be packing a small lunch. But let's talk about efficiency; apparently we get 4.8 on the highway which is really impressive for a small vehicle like this. Your gas bill is going to be nothing. I think this car is targeted towards young at heart. I think that you'll probably find a lot of different people interested in it, anything from retired people to young people, to even women and both men alike. And one of the things that was really fun about driving the car, is how you can actually shift it manually. You see, it's a manual transmission that's inside the car, part of the reason is that the automatic transmission are so big, they don't really fit into this size of car, so they put in a manual transmission with what's called an automated clutch So I can actually put it into manual mode, and I can use these pedal shifters drive the car. It feels like I am driving a Ferrari when I do that. As you can see here, I can shift up and I can shift down. And you don't have to worry about over-revving the engine because if it hits 6000rpm, it's automatically going to shift down with that automatic clutch. And one of the things that you can definitely tell about this car is that it has been made with a couple of little extras. For example, the model that we are driving here has nice heated seats; up in the dash you can, there is a six time CD changer. And the overall feel of the car, it feels like its well made. So you're definitely getting a lot of value for that extra dollar. But enough with the talk, let's see how fast we can go.