The future of the
Smart brand has been decided on March 28 when Daimler announced it ceded 50
percent of the city car specialist to China’s Geely. The two companies have
formed a 50:50 joint venture “to own, operate and further develop Smart, the
pioneer of small urban vehicles, as a leader in premium-electrified vehicles.”
Under the new agreement, Geely will engineer the new models while Mercedes-Benz
will style them.
The all-new Smart
EVs co-developed by the two companies will be built in China and will launch
from 2022. Until then, Daimler said it would continue to build the
current-generation Smart EQ Fortwo at its Hambach plant in France and Smart EQ
Forfour at Renault’s Novo Mesto facility in Slovenia. To ensure its electric
city cars remain competitive until 2022, Daimler will give both models a
mid-life facelift that’s expected to debut for the 2020 model year. The
refreshed Smart EQ Fortwo has been spotted for the first time and the changes won’t be radical.
Quite the contrary,
the exterior of the two-seater electric city car will only feature an updated
front bumper and grille, as well as refreshed headlights and taillights.
Speaking of the lights, they will feature new signatures, likely inspired by
the Smart Forease+ Concept. Both the Smart EQ Fortwo and Forfour are expected
to get the same design updates.
One of the photos
also grants a peek inside but we can’t spot any significant changes over the
current model. The powertrain is also expected to carry over unchanged. As a
reminder, it consists of an electric motor that delivers a maximum output of 82 PS and up to 160 Nm of instant torque. The 17.6 kWh
lithium-ion battery enables a driving range of around 150 km according
to the NEDC standard.
