Impressive, but not that impressive. I haven't seen any evidence to address its stability on the road. Seems like the CG would be way off, but then I'll give it the benefit of the doubt with some evidence of how it handles. One of the keys to survivability is accident avoidability.
This rig probably fits in fairly in low speed city traffic where most other cars are of simliar size, like most of Europe, but how will it do at highway speeds, where literalliy every single other car on the road is bigger, and usually, much bigger, like here in America?
The whole idea of spending that kind of money to buy a car that gets a few more mpg compared to a conventional Honda or Toyota compact car is not really worth it, IMO.
And as far as the smart car goes, the Europeans don't exactly have the best reputation for reliability either. I have no idea if the smart car is reliable or not, just stating that some of the other cars from that region don't last as long as many cars from Japan for example.
I personally would rather go out and buy used Honda or Toyota for a fraction of the cost, drive it till the wheels fell off, throw it away and buy another one. And would still be miles ahead in savings.
Maybe I'm bias, since that's exactly what I have. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
The likes of the "smart" car and Prius for that matter, are nothing more than status symbols, IMO. It's all about "look at me, I'm green, BS". Not every single buyer of course, but many of them.
Now, if the "smart car" got 100 mpg or even just 80 mpg, then maybe I'd think differently. But it doesn't.
However, I did read that Europeans had developed a 4 door, 4 passenger, diesel hybrid about the size of the Prius that got 70 mpg. That was a couple of years ago, but I guess it never went into production. Now that's something that would impress me.
Any vehicle that size that gets the same gas mileage as many Japanese compacts from the early 1980s just doesn't do it for me.
