Let's start with a rough timeline of smart: in 1994, Swatch and Daimler officially started the journey of the smart brand; in 1998, the two broke up, and Mercedes-Benz took sole control of smart; and in the following years, smart was greatly popular with its super convenience given by its short and tough body.
Of course, this is only lip service, because according to financial analysts in the industry, as of 2018, Smart has accumulated losses of about 4 billion euros.
Although smart is very well known across the globe, the high price is prohibitive for many consumers. For example, in our Chinese market, it really takes courage to spend 100,000 yuan to buy a "big toy" that is purely for urban commuting.
In 2019, Geely acquired a 50% stake in the Smart brand, operating and developing the future of Smart with Daimler (which has been officially renamed Mercedes-Benz Group this year) with a 50-to-50 shareholding ratio, and fully transitioning to electrification.
"Wow! Wow! I believe that many friends are very excited when they learn this news, because the "joint venture + domestic production" has a high probability of meaning that the price of smart will be more people-friendly in the future.
At the 2021 Munich Motor Show, Smart officially unveiled the new concept car Genie #1, which mainly conveys two key messages to the world:
1. "Ben Smart started making SUVs!" ”
2. "This golden interior is super luxurious!" ”
"Broken! Broken! I believe that many friends are very disappointed when they learn this news, after all, the biggest impression of smart is "small", what is the operation of the wave of attacking SUVs? Little cute becomes bigger and smarter? More importantly, such a luxurious design, it is estimated that the price will not be low after mass production!
On April 25, the smart of nearly 4 years away from the market finally revealed the answer, its first product after the transformation of electrification smart genie #1 officially opened pre-sale, the two configuration models launched this time for Pro+, Premium, the price range of 190,000-230,000 yuan, before discussing the price, we first focus on the product, talk about this smart genie #1.
Smart Genie #1 is positioned as a pure electric small SUV and is built on the Vast SEA architecture, with a design dominated by Mercedes-Benz.
You can say that Mercedes-Benz's zero-to-piece ratio is high, you can say that Mercedes-Benz is expensive, but you can always believe in the design of Mercedes-Benz. The production version of smart genie #1 retains the design of the concept car to the greatest extent, such as rounded lines, suspended roof, front and rear through light sources, illuminated grilles, frameless doors, etc.
Of course, the design of the gate opening on the concept car is still invincible to the eight characters of "practical first, safety first" after all.
It is worth mentioning that although the smart genie #1 is only 4270mm long (although it is still the longest smart in history), its wheelbase has reached 2750mm, so you will find that the appearance of the smart genie #1 is even more "four-wheeled and four-corner" than the "four-wheel four-corner" MINI known for its "four-wheel four-corner".
The interior has one bad news and one piece of good news, respectively.
The bad news is that the brilliant interior style in the concept car is not implemented (of course, this is actually expected), and the good news is that compared with the plastic smart in the past, the interior of smart genie #1 is finally worthy of the word "luxury brand" in the true sense.
64 colors / 20 blocks of brightness adjustment of the atmosphere lamp is absolutely praised, smart genie #1 can be described as a deep Mercedes-Benz true legend, a moment to improve the texture of the entire interior to a new dimension, presumably these years the interior designers have not less to go to the nightclub to draw inspiration, the atmosphere is really in place.
Smart Genie #1 body color provides 9 choices, roof color and interior color provide 2 choices respectively, I believe that the step of choosing color will be stuck to many friends who suffer from selection difficulties.
It can be seen that the central control area has almost eliminated all the physical buttons, and various operations in the car have been integrated into the central 12.8-inch floating touch screen, which has a resolution of 1920×1080, and the human-computer interaction interface can be personalized.
The cancellation of the physical button in the car means that there are extremely high requirements for the fluency and voice interaction of the car machine, and the currently known information is that the user can issue specific commands through the genie assistant Avatar in the voice summon screen to achieve entertainment and intelligence-related functions.
However, whether this set of car machines is good or not, we can only look forward to the follow-up experience of test driving, in short, now the pressure is given to the car engineers.
The instrument uses a 9.2-inch mini fish screen (perhaps called saury is more appropriate), the upper only shows the endurance, speed, temperature, multimedia and other key information, more driving information is placed on the HUD head-up display, which is also a scheme that many pure electric vehicles love to use.
As for the OTA upgrade, intelligent driving assisted driving system, mobile phone APP interaction, these pure electric vehicle "standard" we will not repeat, in fact, the most surprising thing to me is the smart genie #1 power system.
Originally thought that this type of car will definitely be energy-saving in the choice of power, but in fact, the new car uses a motor with a maximum power of 200kW and a maximum torque of 343N·m, so the 0-100km/h acceleration time of smart genie #1 can reach 6.7 seconds, and it also supports 3 driving modes and 3 steering comforts to choose from.
In terms of batteries, a ternary lithium battery with a capacity of 66kWh is used, and its maximum pure electric mileage can reach 560 kilometers (CLTC). In terms of charging and replenishment, in the DC overcharge mode (150kW charging pile), the new car can increase the power from 10% to 80% in less than 30 minutes.
After talking about the car, let's look at the price, in fact, in the price range of 190,000-230,000, I personally think that smart genie #1 has no direct sense of competitors, at least not before the mini pure tram officially landed.
First of all, smart genie #1 is a price segment, and if you want to find a model with a design texture that can be compared, from a personal aesthetic point of view, there really is none.
Moreover, there are only two pure electric small SUVs in the price range of 190,000-230,000 that are currently on the market, one is the Mazda CX-30 EV, and the other is the Yize E Jinqing... You know what I mean?
And because of the ultra-long wheelbase and smart ancestral super space shaping ability, the smart elf #1 has a very good spatial performance in the field of small SUVs, the rear seats can have a 13 cm movement of the opening, the normal riding experience should theoretically not be weaker than the compact SUV.
Suppose smart genie #1 directly hits a compact pure electric SUV, and the more capable of playing in this price range is BYD Song PLUS EV, AION V, Nezha U, Xiaopeng G3, and Volkswagen ID.4 family. But if you really want to talk about the design texture and playful properties, I'm afraid that smart genie #1 will still be better, after all, the Mercedes-Benz design blessing is almost like hanging.
The user group of smart genie #1 is very clearly defined, young, fun-loving, the pursuit of quality, and of course, the most important thing - no shortage of money. Smart was once jokingly called "big toy", and the newborn smart still emphasizes the fun attribute, even if it has grown into a "teenager".
Once smarts were like the Nintendo Switch, only caring about gameplay, but the performance of the fuselage could not keep up with the times. Today's Smart Genie #1 performs like Microsoft's XSX, but the most unreasonable thing is that it still retains the gameplay of the Switch.