Only electric SMARTs in 2018?

SMART is owned by Daimler and makes very small two-seater and four-seater cars. At first they were all gas powered, but a visit of the Daimler executives at Elon Musk's electric car factory left it's mark in history, as they really liked the electric prototype and started collaboration with Musk's company, Tesla (Motors). Musk told some of the story in a 3 hour long shareholder meeting last year.

Now with the recent dieselgate scandals Daimler, as many other carmakers caught with their pants down, vowed to make greener cars, so starting in 2018, SMART will make only electric versions of all their small city cars in/for North America.

This isn't a huge hit for consumers, as these small cars are not really for highways and their electric versions are quite easy and fun to drive. Their range is around 100miles and their motor has just 80hp, driven by just a 17kWh battery pack.

These small cars would make excellent taxis in large cities, as they can fit anywhere and are quite reliable. They can be fully charged in 2.5 hours on a 220V outlet, in 22 hours on 110volts or in just 45minutes at a compatible fast charging station.

Even though the electric SMARTs represent a small part of the car market, it's a step in the right direction. As factories ramp up EV production, it would be time to inform the public about them, because as things stand today, the overwhelming majority of car owners don't know that EVs actually exist and have a fastly growing charging infrastructure.

Today the highest percentage of EV owners are in Norway. 30% of all new vehicles sold in 2016 were pure battery-electric and hybrid vehicles. They achieved this by eliminatig taxes on EV's, while keeping ICE car VAT at 100%. Yes, if you buy a 30.000 USD fossil fuel car in Norway, you have to pay 30.000 USD tax on it.

While Russia is far behind on the EV front, they just adopted a law, which forces all gas stations to have at least one working charging station for EVs. This is a very good idea, as most gas stations  have at least 3-4 parking spots' worth of space far from the gas pumps.

My country is even farther behind, as one supermarket chain put out a couple of free chargers in their parking lots. Using these chargers you can go through the whole country from west to east, right to the beaches of the Black Sea. In Cluj-Napoca (population 400.000) I've seen only two Hybrid cars this year, but will hopefully get 25 electric buses on the road soon.