I Drive the Electric Smart Car
Smart Car of Clearwater had a demonstration of the Electric Smart Car today. Robert and I attended and had an opportunity to drive the car.
It was incredibly quiet. I could barely hear the motor under full acceleration. The air conditioning fan was making all of the noise. I was slightly disappointed that there was no Sci-Fi jetson’s sound coming from the car.
The air conditioning uses an electric motor to drive the compressor. It blows just as cold as my gas-engined Smart. When at rest, the A/C was pulling 1 or 2 kilowatts according to the gage.
It had charging cables for both 110 and 240 volts. The terminal end of the plugs are standard. The 240 volt plug looks just like the one on a clothes dryer, the 110 volt plug is like a standard extension cord.
The ride was noticeably smoother than my gas-powered Smart. Probably due to the weight of the batteries.
We had to keep it in the parking lot and never got it over 20 mph. Got into the re-gen, a bit, by tapping on the brake pedal. It didn’t seem that strong. Would probably work better at higher speeds.
It was a lot of fun to drive. Smart is coming out with only 250 electric cars available for lease this October. Electric Smart cars go on sale to the general public about 6 months later.
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