Smart #2 due as electric Fortwo replacement on shared platform
Smart believes it has a strong business case for a new-era compact city car
Smart boss says "we're working on" a tiny electric city car, but the firm needs a partner to make it profitable
Smart could give the green light to an electric Fortwo successor in a matter of months, its European boss has revealed, but it must be proved profitable before getting approval.
The Fortwo – the firm's first model and one of the smallest cars sold in Europe – retired recently after 26 years of production, with no immediate successor lined-up, but Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann has confirmed that plans are afoot for an electric replacement.
"We are working on that one," he told Autocar. "The run-out of the current Fortwo was two months ago, now. It would have been great to have a direct successor - we don't, but we're working on it."
He acknowledged the strong business case for a new-era compact city car – "not only in Europe but particularly for Europe, so it would make sense to bring it to sale".
Proposals already exist for the city car, dubbed 'Project 2' internally and expected to take the #2 name into production. Addressing the potential confusion that could arise from it being much smaller than the #1 crossover, Adelmann explained that the number 2 has been reserved "on purpose" as it is an "iconic number" for the brand and should be used for a Fortwo successor.
As the Smart line-up expands, he said, a pattern will emerge whereby odd numbers are used for SUV and SUV-coupés and even numbers are for "other products".
But more important than defining the EV's shape and styling is ensuring that it can be sold profitably, and for that Smart is looking to identify a partner firm with whom it can share development and production costs.
"The [city car] segment is not huge in Europe; the best year for Fortwo was around 100,000 units, and that's not enough to justify a platform," Adelmann said.
"If you share this platform with partners – we're still in evaluation – then you can also share the investment costs and the production site etcetera, and it starts making sense.
"The last thing we want to do is produce a vehicle where nobody is earning money, because that vehicle will not last for long.
"We want to have a positive business case for us, for our retailers and in the end for our customers."
Smart is 50% owned by China's Geely, which owns a range of car brands spanning a huge variety of sizes and segments. It remains unclear whether one of these could partner with Smart for a city car, but the closest match for the original Fortwo in size terms from across the Geely portfolio would seem to be the Geometry Panda - a three-metre urban electric car with four seats and a range of 124 miles.