Anyone have experience with the older Electric Drive models?

[Hogster]

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with the old Electric Drive model?

We're looking to get rid of our diesel fortwo and replace it with an electric car (it would be the second electric car in the family). Renault Zoes are cheap but the battery lease puts me off, as do the rumours I've heard of unreliability problems. We've had a Nissan Leaf in the past but it's an unnecessarily huge car for running around town. The new Smart Electric Drive looks lovely but the cost is exorbitant ...

Then I found this:

http://www.lookers.co.uk/smart/used-...rive-2dr-auto/

Seems to be pretty much the only ApprovedUsed old-style electric drive in the country! I wonder if that should tell me something ...

I'm curious to know:

–- What is their reliability like?
–- What are the servicing costs?
–- Is it possible to purchase an extended warranty?

Many thanks for your help!

David

[Hogster]

Decided not to go for it in the end as the battery is leased (£55/mo) and it's £3k more than the Zoes we've been looking at (although the Zoes are around 15k miles whereas this smart is around 2.3k) ...

Would still be interested if anyone on here has owned one though

Cheers!

David

[Thrumbleux]

Hi David, good to see you looking in by.
Watching this forum and Smartz over the years, I haven't noticed anyone buying into the electric fortwo. I may have missed them mind, but I don't think so. Is there possibly a forum specifically dealing with EVs that may have a member who has or has run an electric smart?
Over on MB Club there's a guy who leases fortwos and I think he has just taken delivery of an electric one. PeterDLM IIRC, but he doesn't say an awful lot about his smarts as the rest of the forum has its gaze firmly fixed somewhere in the previous century.

[Hogster]

Hi Thrumbleux,

Thanks for your reply! Yes I'm not often over here anymore, and soon even less so as we've decided to go for the second hand Zoe now Hope you're well?

I must say I don't think I've ever seen an old style electric smart on the road, maybe once in total ...! I think it's just been too costly for most people so far, although with Smart's push for the ED (and the way they'll only sell the ED version in the US now), maybe we'll start to see more of them around? I think I'm right in saying the new Smart ED is the cheapest new pure EV you can buy at £16.4k, the next closest being the ZE40 Zoe which is around £18.5k including the battery ...

Cheers for now!

David

[ColSmart]

In the UK most electric fortwos are owned by green loving business advertising their company and there are very few private owners. Though there are quite a number of private owners if you read up on the Canadian/American smart owners website of electric Fortwos, The stories there are enough to put anyone off electric cars.

Stories of trying to save enough energy to get home, like turning off wipers in the rain, lights off at night and heater off in mid winter to reduce electrical load, and other things like having to map your route so you do not go up steep hills that reduce energy fast, and trying to find public charging points on route, and time waiting to recharge. Absolutely hopeless..

Think it is still best to stick with fuel rather then electric, till the electric range is improved, and battery hire/month is done away with.

[Hogster]

When you said the stories I thought you meant reliability wise ... those range stories are nothing new

I've had quite the opposite experience of electric cars actually. Up until I returned it at the ends of its 2 year lease in June this year, I drove – and absolutely loved – a Nissan Leaf. It had a realistic maximum range of about 75 miles, and yet I drove it 34,000 miles over 2 years, never ran out of battery (yes I got close on a few occasions, but who hasn't nearly run out of fuel? ) and saved about £3400 on fuel costs over that period compared to an average car (not counting the cheaper servicing).

Whilst larger range batteries will certainly help (and the current generation cars are now comfortably achieving 150-200 miles per charge, compared to the 60-80 of a few years ago), I think people's perceptions of range anxiety– and more specifically how much 'range' they actually need – needs to change. Yes EVs don't fit everyone's usage patterns (as such I wouldn't recommend an EV to travelling saleman that does 300 miles a day ... unless he can afford a Tesla Model X that is!), but they will work very well for a surprisingly large number of people. Yes you do need to plan ahead more when travelling long distances, but the charging network is now so well established (again, compared to a few years ago) that so long as you factor in a quick 20-30 minute stop along your route (the number of stops obviously depending on how far you need to go), it's really no big deal. That's not to mention the extremely quiet and comfortable ride, the instant grin-instigating acceleration, the cheaper servicing costs and the ludicrously low running costs of around 2p/mile (my diesel smart averaged 11p/mile) ... I could go on

I'm replacing the Leaf with a Hyundai Ioniq EV which can do 130-170 miles on a charge ... but ironically there's been such a global demand for them (it's the most energy efficient EV available at the moment, not including the Tesla Model 3 which won't arrive in this country until late 2018), that they can't build them quickly enough and so orders have been slipping ... In the mean time I'm driving a flexi-lease Kia Soul which does around 90 miles to the charge and is exceptionally comfortable to drive.

Anyway, I could talk about EVs until you're all bored stiff so I'll say no more :p

David

[Thrumbleux]

Imagine if this was the other way around and the transition was from electric to IC.
Who's for having all their domestic appliances powered by an IC engine?

[ColSmart]

One concern I have as a pedestrian, is on how quiet an electric car can be, and nearly got run over with a real ugly looking BMW i3 as it seemed to be the quitest car I had ever NOT heard .

I have heard other electric cars but for some reason they seemed to rumble and make a bit of noise, so you heard them but not that BMW i3.. Do you think they should fit ice scream van musical tunes on them, he he.

[Hogster]

Quite a few electric cars do have devices which make quiet whining / rumbling noises to help pedestrians hear them (the Zoe, Leaf and Soul all do). But then what about a Rolls-Royce? They're pretty silent when they're moving at slow speeds ... as are push bikes!

Just need to follow the green cross code – stop, look ... and when electric cars are the norm you can forget about the listen bit