Daimler’s Smart brand will soon be an electric-only marque in North America as it plans to stop selling cars with internal combustion engines in the US and Canada.
According to Reuters, Dietmar Exler, head of Mercedes-Benz USA, said in a letter to dealers that the sale of Smart cars with petrol engines would stop when the 2017 model year ends this fall.
“Developments within the micro-car segment present some challenges for the current smart product portfolio. A dedicated focus on the electric drive in the US and Canada provides a logical step to support a sustainable, zero emissions future,” Exler said.
With the ICE models dropped, Smart will sell “Electric Drive” versions of its Fortwo and Fortwo convertible in the US and Canada. This is only for North America and other markets are unaffected. In this era of cheap oil, small cars have been struggling against bigger ones and SUVs in the traditionally big-car loving continent.
In any case, the US isn’t a large market for the Smart brand. Mercedes-Benz USA sold 6,211 units of the city cars last year, down 16% from 2015 figures. That’s a fraction of Smart’s global sales of 144,479 in 2016.
GALLERY: Smart fortwo electric drive
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IMO, the SMART car has a place in everyone heart especially with the ladies. It’s so CUTE(4 Two). If the Smart car were to reemerge as an EV, it will live up to it’s name as a “Smart” EV. What say U folks ??!!
With that size, it should have been an EV.
I say perodua should move into the small EV segment before anyone else does. They stared with Kancil, now look how err.. successful they have become. Get a few of these smart EV cars and reverse engineer.
They need to reverse engineer to put VSC on their models before having EV.