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The Electric Life

13K views 96 replies 24 participants last post by  rfernatt 
#1 ·
I'm going to start a thread here on my experiences with our first electric car and in particular the Smart ForTwo. We just picked up our new car today and I have to admit it was a bit sad to see my Mazda 3 go away. Of course once I got my new Smart the smile came back. And it came back again, again and again. I can't help but just giggle every time I get out of the car and look back at it, it's so small and good looking. Here are some photos.


Lovely weather on the first day home.


Booty!


Top down.

One of the reasons we picked up the car was it's size. Not just for city parking but for parking at home. I have two motorcycles and needed to sell one before winter to be able to fit my old car back in the garage.





That's no longer a problem. I could theoretically fit a third motorcycle in that bay but we'll leave it at two for now.

I drove it for about 26 miles after I got it home to get a feel for it. One observation was that people tend to pull out in front of me more. Here are a list of my immediate likes and dislikes.

Likes -
Turning radius, if I didn't get dizzy so easy I would just keep going in circles for hours.
Style, I love the offbeat style and while the black/green combo wasn't an immediate hit with me it's starting to grow on me.
The cabin is quite roomy, it's almost the first thing I tell everybody because of all the jokes they give me about the size of the car.
Fit and finish is better than I originally thought but not great, some things are done for cost saving and others for weight but it's got a decent feel inside.

Dislikes -
So far my main complaint is the doors. They sound kinda cheap when you close them. Too much shuddering maybe. It's missing that real nice solid sound a good car door makes.
Rides rough on rough roads, yea, I knew that but it got tedious in 25 miles.

So those are my early impressions. From this point I think I will really like the car but I don't know that I will love it.


It's about the same length as my Ninja!

I had a real good but interesting experience with the dealer and securing my car. I'm a bit rushed today so I will save that story for another time. I will continue to add my impressions and life with an electric car to this thread. And of course, please join in if you have any insight or stories you wish to share.
 
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#2 ·
I think you are correct about people pulling out in front of you. My speculation is that it might be related to the width of the car and how we perceive distance. The car may appear further off because it is narrower than most cars. I have nothing to base this off of other than my observations. I installed some LED running lights in the lower grill since mine didn't have DRLs. Does your 453 have those awesome LED strips around the headlights?

At any rate, I feel like people don't pull out in front of me as much since I installed the LEDs.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#3 ·
I think you are correct about people pulling out in front of you. My speculation is that it might be related to the width of the car and how we perceive distance. The car may appear further off because it is narrower than most cars. I have nothing to base this off of other than my observations.
You could be right. It's a common complaint among motorcycle riders about cars pulling out in front of them. Often it is attributed to depth perception and the size of motorcycles. Didn't even occur to me and it happens to me all the time on my bike.


I installed some LED running lights in the lower grill since mine didn't have DRLs. Does your 453 have those awesome LED strips around the headlights?
Yep, the LED strips are standard on the Prime model. Honestly I didn't even know what I was looking at with the different options between the cars at first but I'm happy with what we got.
 
#5 ·
I have a 451, not a 453, but on my car it is hard to close the doors with the windows all the way up. These little cars are fairly air tight and you almost have to slam the doors to get them to close properly. Put the window down a couple of inches before shutting the door and it should sound a lot more solid with that "thunk" we all like to hear.
 
#9 ·
Congrats on a beautiful car. I am very jealous! I am hoping for upgrading my '08 pure to a used 451 ED eventually, as the car's at +105000 miles and a struggling clutch. And I have always had issues with the rough ride on rough roads. My takeaway is that with the forever increase of larger and more SUV's and pickups, the less people complain about the quality of the roads to their town or city, since these enormous vehicles tend to absorb any potholes or torn up streets quite easily. And since most towns and cities are so strapped for cash, road repair and resurfacing gets lowest priority.
 
#10 ·
One of the compelling reasons of getting an electric car are the rebates and tax credits. When we picked up our car on Wednesday last week the Massachusetts rebate pool was down to 17% for the year or roughly 340 car purchases left (best guess). My salesman encouraged me to send in my state rebate documents right away. For MA you need purchase agreement, rebate doc, personal drivers license and registration. It's all done online which is great. I got home, scanned my docs around 2pm and hoped I filled out all forms correctly as I did not want to miss out on my rebate.

Two days later on Friday I received an email that read they received the documents. Later that day they informed that all information I sent was good and the rebate is being processed. It should take about ten days.

My luck with bureaucracies of any kind usually do not end well. I was pleased at how smooth this has gone and how responsive the agency has been. They even gave me email and phone numbers to reach them if I need to pursue any issues.

We are not applying for the Fed tax credits due to the fact that we leased the car. Currently I'm exploring an EVSE rebate, excise tax exemption and annual inspection waiver.
 
#15 ·
Before we went to the dealer I had my heart set on an orange and black or orange and white like in the header for this forum. It was a sad dose of reality that none were available. Our color choices were very limited and I grudgingly picked this black and green Prime model and have to say it's really grown on me.
 
#13 ·
Washington State currently has a sales tax exemption that started at the beginning of 2016 and expires when a certain number of electric vehicles are sold. My understanding is the limit will be reched within the next few months. It was a factor in our decision to rush through the buying process this year.
 
#14 ·
Congrats on the purchase!

As far as the people pulling out in front of you more... it probably has a lot to do with the mentality people have that Smart cars are slow, and they sure as hell don't want to be "stuck" behind you. Myself, also being from the Northeastern US where people's opinions about the Smart are varied (Was sitting at a light the other day with my windows down, and someone coming from the right making a left turn to cross in front of me yelled out "Love your car"... which made me smile as i said thank you), i've seen plenty of that behavior. Even better is when they pass you on a freeway just to go the same speed as you are. That's when i start playing leap frog.

Turning radius is an absolute blast. My fiance gives me an evil look when i do U-turns with plenty of room where her Chevy Spark would just barely pull it off.

I've always loved the style of the Smart (considering my 453 is my second Smart, too). Fit and finish could be improved... but it doesn't necessarily feel like a "Cheap" car. Not nearly as cheap feeling as some i've driven in.

As for the cabin size... that's always the most shocking attribute no matter WHO you show the car to. They never believe that a car with such a small footprint can feel so roomy inside. Funniest thing i've ever seen, though... was at a car show several years ago when i had my 2009 Smart. There was actually a trailer there FROM Smart, too, with all kinds of information about the car, and video's playing inside the trailer... freakin beautiful trailer it was. Anyway, a couple of us that were there with our own Smart's saw this guy walking past with a GIANT mohawk... i'm talking hair sticking up at LEAST a foot... if not more. We talked him into sitting in a Cabrio that had the top down. I'll have to peruse my folders and see if i still have the pic, but it was hysterical looking.

As for your dislikes.... as someone already pointed out, the doors on the 453 sound noticeably chunkier than they did on the 451... mostly cause they ARE a bit chunkier. But they're also still plastic panels on the inside and outside of the door.

Ride quality.... trust me, it's much nicer than the 451.
 
#17 ·
I had someone pullout from a stop sign as I was crossing the street. I was about halfway through the intersection and the other driver just pulled out from their stop and turned left in front of me like I wasn't there. I blasted the horn a few times and no reaction. I was able to pull alongside her at the next intersection and blasted her for inattentive driving. As I pulled away I realize how non-threatening I must seem driving away in a whisper quiet clown car.
 
#19 ·
Hit a bit of a snag with my state rebate. Apparently my purchase agreement didn't provide the total price of vehicle. They are giving me ten days to rectify this. Should be easy enough to resolve except for the fact that I'm in Japan right now and won't return home for three more days.
 
#21 ·
Thanks to SmartCarDan everything is set with the state rebate. I received an email this morning that all is approved and the check will be issued within 75 days. Yay!

Now that we're back from vacation my wife is starting to use the car for her daily commute. A couple of experiments will be interesting here. First, how long will the novelty of the Smart Car compel her to drive it over her luxe Audi and two what kind of range and performance will she get on her drive.

Yesterday was her first foray and while she doesn't watch the stats as closely as I do she told me that from a 100% charge she used 24% of the battery for her first day. We figure that would give her three trips to work and back before we had to recharge the battery. Of course currently the weather is just peachy between 60 to 80 degrees F.

I did my first charge of the car when we got back from the trip, it took longer than I thought, 12 plus hours from a SOC of 37% or so. I recall that the charger that comes with the car had choices all the way up to 16, I used 12. What is recommended?
 
#22 ·
Thoughts in random order!

A little bit like a gasoline car, if the battery is really fully charged, it takes a mile or two to get it off 100%, so while you went from 100% to 76% the first day, you might go from 76% to 48-50% the second day even if the driving were identical.

On the 451, charging from 95% to 100% takes a long time with the included EVSE, like almost an hour. That's typical of lithium based batteries - once it gets near fully charged, you can't quickly top it off the rest of the way without doing some long term damage to the battery - you have to trickle in the charge at that point. So your 12 hour charge time from 37% was probably 10 hours to 90% and then the last two hours to get to 100%.

On the 451, the charger has 8, 12, and "max" charging currents. I believe the "max" was 16 amps, and since our wiring is rating for 15 amps maximum continuous use, I always used 12 amps. However, I found that the 12 amp setting showed as only charging at about 1 kw, so maybe 8-9 amps. I've been running it at max, which charges at 10-12 amps. I'm not sure what it uses to determine how much current to draw, but we've never had an issue with even that slower charging rate, probably because we charge it up to full any time we know we'll be doing extended driving and the SOC is below 80%.

It's now dark when I go to work so I'm running with the headlights on. That hasn't seemed to increase my usage much. What's way more of a determinant is how fast I'm driving. I can make it into work using as little as 20% or as much as 40%. Today was a 40% day - I spent probably five or six miles continuously sitting on the speed limiter. The 20% usage days are those when traffic is heavy and I'm creeping along at 15 MPH. It's totally the opposite than a gas vehicle.

Have a lot of fun getting to know your 453!
 
#23 ·
Thoughts in random order!
It's now dark when I go to work so I'm running with the headlights on. That hasn't seemed to increase my usage much.
That comment made me go the 2013 ED owners manual I d/l'd.

I am astonished to see that the 2013 lightbulbs are all incandescent or halogen just like the 08 pure that i have!:eek:

I just figured they would all be switched over to LED's by 2013, except for the headlights of course. I know the blinkers and brake lights aren't really on that much, but they all seem to be using 7.5a or more.

I would think it would add up over time. But DIY switching them over to LED's can cause other issues like blink rates or incorrect color and intensities, and can be hazordous guesswork when ordering.


And how about 2017 ED's, are they all LED's now?
 
#26 ·
Even if all of the lights take 200 watts, the HV battery is 17.6 kwh so it's enough to run them for almost 100 hours. Considering that I'd drain the HV battery just by driving in a couple of hours, the lights should degrade range by 2% or so. Even the A/C doesn't seem to reduce the range by too much. We haven't had to use the heater yet.
 
#27 ·
Today I got to use a chargepoint charging station for the first time. I know that this is probably old news or a "whatever" moment for most of you who have been driving electric cars for some time but it was new for me. I signed up for chargepoint a few weeks ago and received the card earlier last week. This station wasn't far from my house but it was more of an experiment than anything else. It was a free station outside of a Whole Foods and when I first drove up the two stations were in use. Fortunately we had quite a bit to do in the area and I was able to finally connect the car and use the app. I didn't realize that the app let you know when the station was free and that once your car was connected it would give you data on state of charge, it was really cool.

Don't know that I have the nerve to drive beyond my point of no return from home but having used my first charging station gives me a bit more confidence.
 
#34 ·
I can't see paying ten percent of the price of the car on a charger, but then again I don't need to charge quickly so I just use the supplied EVSE and a standard household outlet. Another nice thing about that is that I can charge ANYWHERE; almost everyone has 110 electrical outlets and I can plug it in. Thus if my daughter wants to have a sleepover at a friends house which is a fair distance away; no worries, she can plug it in there. Most retailers and restaurants don't mind you plugging in while you sit down for a meal or shop in the store and you can easily gain 10% SOC just from a standard outlet. Those with longer commutes can usually arrange to plug it in while they work.

Hey, if you have the money and need to charge quickly; go for it. But then again.....
 
#35 ·
I can't see paying ten percent of the price of the car on a charger, but then again I don't need to charge quickly so I just use the supplied EVSE and a standard household outlet.

Hey, if you have the money and need to charge quickly; go for it. But then again.....
Just researching, right now I'm content with the standard EVSE that came with the car.
 
#36 ·
I've been level 1 charging all this week so I can track the cost via a Kill A Watt. I could totally deal with level 1 charging most of the time. I do like the convenience of the longer cable on the level 2 charger if I need to park outside. There are also times when I have to go in and work at night. During the winter, I could see and issue with not being able to use a level 2 charger when I have to turn around and run in to work later in the evening. All that being said, I could see many users being able to get away with level 1 only.

Like Hurricanes mentioned up above, keeping the level 1 in the tail gate so you have it with you at all times is nice. That's the other reason I like the level 2 charger in the garage. I don't have to get the level 1 charger out of the tailgate when I get home. Not sure the conscience is a good argument to buy one but I like having both around.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#37 ·
Some studies have shown batteries last a bit longer if you slow charge them with lower amperage. It's not a huge difference, but considering how expensive batteries are in the SMART, it was something I thought about.

But again, if you need to recharge quickly, then you really have no choice.
 
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