Many people are still wondering why, for Christ’s sake, one should go electric instead of staying with the combustion engine (ICE) that has been finetuned to nearly perfection in the last 130 years.
The reason is quite apparent: electric cars are superior in nearly every aspect. The Smart #5 Brabus we had the opportunity to test drive on Portuguese roads is a good example.
It is overpowered, yes. It is not cheap, no, indeed. You need to charge it, but that tends to be faster than expected. Still, it is an awful lot of fun for your money. Try to beat that in an ICE car for the same budget.
A high bid for a Smart?
Let’s start with the price: €61.700 for the most expensive version, the Brabus. Isn’t that a high bid for a Smart, which most people still associate with the compact city car two-seater it was in the early days?
First, Smart has grown up. With its 4,695 mm length, width of 1,920 mm, height of 1,705 mm, and a wheelbase of 2,900 mm, the #5 is almost double the size of the original Smart ForTwo, which saw the light of day in 1998.
As we wrote before, Mercedes’ little brother, somewhat like the MINI is to BMW, has grown up to become the biggest Smart ever, a fully electric mid-size D-segment crossover SUV that – frankly speaking – might make things hot for the even slightly smaller Mercedes EQB even in its basic version.
With a starting price of €46,700 for that base version, that’s quite below the Mercedes’ €51,356 starting price tag, despite heavy European import taxes on China-built EVs.
Shy about its own shadow
While the Smart is sold alongside its Mercedes siblings in the same showrooms, Mercedes appears to be a bit shy about being associated with its Chinese subbrand.
Smart is a 50/50 joint venture of Mercedes and Geely, the parent company of Volvo, Polestar, Lynk & Co, Zeekr, and, until recently, Lotus. It delivers the complete technical base and software.
Mercedes comes in for the design, in and out, which is an asset, especially in China, where this Smart is built. The ‘Styled by Mercedes’ logo on the B-style is there to be seen by everyone as a quality stamp. It’s somewhat like a ‘Pininfarina’ signature on a Ferrari.
In Europe, that ‘Styled by Mercedes’ badge is nowhere to be found. And if you ask one of the Mercedes designers who worked on the Smart #5 why, they wriggle out by saying it’s up to others to comment that…
Why? This car breathes Mercedes in design language, superior material choices, and built quality. There is nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it is something to be proud of. It looks like Mercedes is afraid of its own shadow here.
Pure Chinese tech?
Maybe that has to do with the fact that, apart from the interior style and exterior design, the underlying tech is pure Chinese, signed Geely, but finetuned by Mercedes engineers to European taste.
The smart #5 Brabus is the ultimate peak performer with signature styling like the big 21 wheels, red brake calipers, and red seat belts. It is Brabus inside and out.
How to beat 3.8 seconds from 0 to 100 km?
But the real thing is underneath. It has four-wheel drive, 475 kW or 636 horsepower, and front and rear engines. It has 710 Nm torque immediately available at your foot without needing to rev high or overcome the turbo lag, sprinting from 0 to 100 km/hour in 3.8 seconds.
To beat that in an ICE sports car, you need to look at a BMW M4 CS (€160,000), a Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS (€160,000), or a Mercedes-AMG GT R (€170,000). But there is a ‘slight’ price difference, which is noticeable.
So saying an electric car is ‘too expensive’ compared to an ICE is relative to what performance and quality you want from a vehicle. Do you need that kind of power in everyday traffic? Certainly not, but it can be a lot of fun driving occasionally.
Does it handle well?
Can it compare in handling and agility? It does amazingly well for a boxy SUV that is quite heavy (2,378 kg curb weight). Like most EVs, it has a rather harsh, yet not uncomfortable, suspension, which you’ll also want in a sports car.
Both electric engines deliver such power and instant torque that the SUV can fly uphill in the Portuguese Douro valley, where we put it to a test of roughly 300 km.
A typical advantage of an electric car is that you can set a maximum of regenerative braking on engine power, allowing for so-called one-pedal drive.
You push and release the throttle to accelerate or slow down. There is no shifting of gears, braking, or switching pedals; you concentrate on steering, accelerating, and slowing down at every curb in the road.
This invites extremely relaxed, sporty driving. You have the choice of different driving mode settings from ECO, ‘normal’, over SPORT and hyper-powered BRABUS, but at the same time you have some limited off-road 4WD capabilities with settings for Adaptive, Sand, Snow, Mud, and Rock.
Up to 90% fewer moving parts
EVs have roughly 70 to 90 percent fewer moving parts in the drivetrain (~20–100) than ICE vehicles (~1,000–2,000. This means lower maintenance, less wear and tear, and more straightforward servicing.
They are also less prone to mechanical breakdown, as they don’t need pistons, valves, crankshaft, camshaft, etc., a multi-speed gearbox, a fuel injection system, an exhaust system (catalytic converter, muffler, etc.), an engine oil system, filters, or belts.
EVs can do with one or more electric motors (much simpler design), a battery pack (complex, but fewer moving parts), an inverter and motor controller, and regenerative braking systems, but still have many shared parts, like brakes, suspension, body panels, infotainment, for instance.
Geely’s 800-volt SEA platform
In the case of the Smart #5 Brabus, this technology is basically Chinese, as it uses Geely’s 800-volt Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) platform. It’s actually quite the same car underneath as Geely’s own Zeekr brand, with the 7X.
We had the opportunity to drive that one a few weeks before, also in Portugal, and it was likewise impressive. The SEA platform was developed for Geely’s European cars in Gothenburg, Sweden.
One of its core values is its flexibility, which enables building all kinds of models, from a shooting brake to a compact and mid-size SUV. However, the 7X is the first Zeekr model in Europe – expected in summer, also in Belgium – to feature an 800-volt electrical architecture and ultra-fast charging, and that goes for the Smart #5 Brabus too.
Limited range and long charging times?
That brings us to that other inevitable argument against EVs by the hesitating general public: limited range and slow charging compared to a few-minute tank stop for an ICE car.
Like the Zeekr, this Smart has a 100 kWh (NMC) battery pack, allowing for a range of 540 km (WLTP) under the best circumstances. Enough? It depends on what you intend to do with it, but most sports cars must be refueled after 500 km.
One significant benefit of the 800-volt architecture is that charging can be done faster. In a live demo in Portugal, Smart showed that 10 to 80% charging can be done in under 18 minutes if the public DC charging infrastructure allows.
That might still take longer than filling up with gasoline, but technology is moving fast. The Zeekr 7DX, for instance, is said to be ready to deliver 10 to 80% charging in 10.5 minutes at 480 kW DC as soon as public charging infrastructure allows.
Powering your complete house
And what ICE cars generally can’t do at all is power your power tools and household appliances on a camping trip at 230 volts or backup your whole house electricity system for days, in case of a major power blackout. Can’t happen here in Europe? Ask the Spanish and the Portuguese.
The Smart #5 isn’t capable of Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) yet or delivering extra power back to the grid (V2G). Still, it has all the hardware needed when it becomes commercially available in Europe.
So finally, what’s the baseline? Being a cool lover of the concept of a bulky SUV myself, I have to admit being impressed with how much (sports) car you can get for that money.
If you want the same level in an ICE sporty SUV, you might want to consider a BMW X2 M35i xDrive (€65,000) or a similar model.
For that money, you’ll have a 2.0-liter BMW TwinPower Turbo inline, 296 hp, 400 Nm of torque, xDrive all-wheel drive, a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic, and 0–100 km/hour acceleration in 5.4 seconds.
The Smart #5 Brabus officially debuts on May 27th in Belgium. Let’s be honest, there is no doubt that the future is electric.
