Edmunds.com editor thoughts from May 07

[jwight]

Nice to look back on his comments form "the future."

The Smart Car Cometh -- but are Americans ready?

After several false starts, the Smart Car looks to finally (officially) be landing on American shores in 2008 (a company called "Zap" has been importing Smarts and selling them in the U.S. for a couple years). For $99 you can reserve your own teensy-tiny city car that is supposed to get 40-plus mpg and cost between $12,000 and $17,000.

When it comes to U.S. buyers' interest in these vehicles, and the level of Smart's success in this country, I'm hearing everything from "it's going to bomb" to "da bomb" from various friends and co-workers. Penske's United Auto Group, the distributor of Smart's efforts here, is taking the cars on a road show in coming months to promote awareness of -- and interest in -- the little runabout. Here's my take:

The Smart will be very hot initally because of the "new" and "cool" factor, and it will have some sustained interest because of the low cost and high mileage if offers. But after the "gotta be cool" folks are tired of it, and after the "gotta save gas -- and the planet!" people have one, sales will fall off precipitously.

Of course the real qeustion is: How many of those people are there? In my opinion, not nearly as many as there are people who will find the car's size impractical at the very least and downright scary at the most (this thing makes a Mini look big). In other words, a percentage of people who are already buying small economy cars will consider it, but that entire market isn't particularly huge. Thus, a percentage of it buying the Smart (again, asuming they aren't put off by the limited people/cargo capacity and scary crash possibilities) won't add up to much.

I still think it's a cool idea. But I don't see it heralding a cultural shift in what Americans drive. You'll still see plenty of Escalades and Hummers on the road, even after the Smart hits showrooms. And if you're seeing those behomoths from the wheel of a Smart...

Well, god bless you.

Posted by Karl May 17, 2007 5:00 am

We now know how many people (upwards of 40,000), and we're still seeing comments about how "scary" the smart is (I found it very friendly myself.) As to long term sales, who knows? Hopefully smart will find a market here for many years to come.

John