On January 8, 2020, Daimler Group and Geely Holding Group reached a strategic agreement, and the two sides jointly invested 5.4 billion yuan to establish Zhimada Automobile Co., Ltd., and Smart officially transformed into a pure electric brand. Mercedes-Benz and Geely jointly developed, 6.7s broke the hundred + 440 endurance, girls will fall in love with it?
For the smart car, I believe everyone is not unfamiliar, because it was previously a brand under the Daimler Group, so it has a certain luxury car aura blessing, coupled with some marketing methods on the market, making smart a fashionable, personalized product, so it attracts many female consumers.
However, from the perspective of product strength, smart is a model with very low cost performance. Aside from that very provocative aesthetic look, the rest is basically useless. First of all, the space is very average, with only two seats, and the practicality is extremely low. You know, the current Hongguang MINI EV also has four seats. In addition, this 0.6T three-cylinder engine with the AMT gearbox, driving up is no different from the tractor, acceleration is weak, gear shifting is frustrated, and the driving experience of any car on the market is stronger than it.
Just relying on marketing alone but not having hard power is doomed to go far, so smart's position is increasingly marginalized. In 2021, Smart's global sales of 38,500 units have already explained its problems.
Two years after finalizing the collaboration, the smart genie #1, a pure electric new car, was finally released. Regarding the division of labor in the development of the car, Mercedes-Benz is responsible for the design, while Geely is responsible for the research and development and production, based on the Haohan SEA architecture, it belongs to the second car under the platform, the first is the extreme krypton 001.
In terms of appearance, smart genie #1 is still taking a rounded and cute design route, the front face adopts the latest design language, the through-type headlights are very recognizable, the LOGO is also replaced by English, and the honeycomb-like grille decoration is retained below, bringing a richer sense of visual layering.
There is no obvious waist line on the side, and the two-tone body creates a good fashion atmosphere, which is also in line with the tonality of the smart brand. The C-pillar position has a physical LOGO, and seeing this scene makes me think of bmw X2, which does not rule out the taste of borrowing in it. In addition, the essential elements of electric vehicles are hidden door handles and low wind resistance wheel hubs. What's even more surprising is that Genie #1 is equipped with frameless doors, which is a highlight of future publicity. In terms of size, the new car is 4270*1822*1636mm in length, width and height, and the wheelbase is 2750mm, and the closest model to it in size on sale is the Volkswagen ID.3.
The interior part as a whole presents a symmetrical layout, and most of the functions are concentrated in the interior of the car, which looks very simple. The LCD instrument is slender, and the left and right sides of the three-frame steering wheel are chrome buttons, which is full of grade. In addition, in terms of configuration, including 64-color mood lights, 13 speaker Beats sound system, smart Pliot intelligent assisted driving, etc., the mainstream functions on the market can be seen in this car.
In terms of storage space, the front trunk volume is 15L, although it is not large, but there is no problem in putting some bits and pieces. Thanks to the rear movable seats, the conventional volume of the trunk can be changed back and forth between 323-411L, and can be extended to 986L when reclined, without any problems for daily household use.
In terms of power, the smart genie #1 adopts a single-motor rear-drive layout, with a maximum horsepower of 272 horses, a peak torque of 343 Nm, and an acceleration time of 6.7 seconds per 100 kilometers. The battery capacity is 66kWh, and the cruising range under WLTP conditions is 420-440 kilometers, which is a relatively good data.
Model prospects
Smart Genie #1 will land on the domestic market within this year, all the information of the car is basically at a glance, and the biggest question left is the price. With the smart title and Mercedes-Benz halo blessing, it is definitely not cheap if it is imported. But now that it is Geely OEM production, the situation should be different, and personal speculation should be slightly lower than Volkswagen's ID.3.