Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tech Zone
Tech Zone
How the Smart Car Works
Ed Grabianowski
The Smart Fortwo Passion Cabrio
Image courtesy? 1998-2006 DaimlerChrysler. All rights reserved.
The Smart Fortwo Cabrio Passion. More photos of Smart cars.
With gas prices to historic peaks in the United States and fuel-efficient cars in fashion, the time might be perfect for DaimlerChrysler to introduce the Smart Car to U.S. markets. Already popular in Europe, the Smart car is small in stature but big on the economy. The updated Smart Fortwo (named because it is "for two people) is ready for release in 2008, so that we may be seeing a lot more intelligent cars on the road in the near future.
The Smart car began with Nicolas Hayek, the man who invented Swatch watches. He wanted to make a small car to be fuel efficient, environmentally friendly and easy to park in small spaces. The Swatch collaborated with Daimler-Benz (after an unsuccessful venture with Volkswagen) to create the first city in the framework of the Cup name Micro Compact Car (MCC). Development began in 1994 and the first car was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1997. The CMC has been put on sale the following year, but Hayek was disappointed by the use of a conventional engine - he wanted a hybrid or pure electric motor - and the price of the car, which was higher than expected. At first sales were slow, Swatch out of the partnership, leaving Daimler-Benz (now DaimlerChrysler) full owner of the Smart division. Today, the Smart is part of DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes group.
Smart Fortwo Coupe Pure
Image courtesy? 1998-2006 DaimlerChrysler. All rights reserved.
Smart Fortwo Coupe Pure
When you see the Smart Car, the first thing you notice is its size. The City Coupe (renamed "Fortwo" Smart began after the release of other models), is only 8 feet, 2.5 inches long, less than 5 feet wide and about 5 feet tall. (In comparison, the Hummer H1 is over 7 feet wide.) This means that instead of parallel parking in line with other cars, a Smart car can save up to the curb. Two or three smart cars can park in this way in a single parking space sidewalk.
In the following sections, we will watch which means small in terms of safety and gas mileage.
What is very intelligent about it?
The name "Smart" came from a combination of Swatch, Mercedes and the word "art". The company also markets the cars with the brand and model name in lower case to emphasize their small size.
All content on this page are taken from www.howstuffworks.com
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