It's time to take another look at the Smart. After all, purely electric cars achieved a share of about 10 percent of new registrations in November. The Smart Fortwo has moved up to fourth place this month, only just behind the Hyundai Kona and VW ID.3.

In twelfth place, we even find the Smart Forfour. Of course, this success is due to at least two factors: firstly, the fact that November is not the end of the quarter and Tesla is therefore holding back and, of course, the enormous purchase premium, which has a particularly strong effect on small vehicles in percentage terms.

Surprisingly enough, the Renault Zoe, which is not particularly inexpensive among e-cars, is lonely at the top. At a minimum of €21,400, the Smart can just about keep up. keep up. The Forfour is 600 € more expensive and the convertible shown above another 2,600 €. The Zoe costs from €36,000, but has 52 kWh instead of 17.6 kWh on board.

We are in year -2 of the Smart development. That means that with Geely's 50 per cent share instead of Renault's, there will be a new Smart in about two years' time. hopefully not getting the driver nervous after 100 reasonably easy kilometres. In any case, it is somewhat surprising that the Forfour did not at least get a bigger battery.

As a facelift of the third generation, the front and rear have been changed once again in 2020, best recognisable by the rear light units with their four segments each. Technically, the Smart has remained the same. With its 160 Nm of torque, it can be still a sporty car. If the price is also right in the future . . .

Although the price is quite high, in this case it is probably one of the deciding factors in the decision to stop ordering the Smart. Because even with inexpensive vehicles, the manufacturers have to pay a third of the purchase premium. of the purchase premium. Presumably, this means that Mercedes is also well below its production costs. However, the Smart helps the company to reduce penalty payments.

Apart from the facelift, however, not much is happening publicly. If you go to 'https://www.smart.com' and then try to configure the Fortwo, you will be taken to a beautifully designed page on which you can turn the car in all directions and also open it. All colours can be selected for the model, including those for the tridion safety cell, but unfortunately still in a pre-facelift version. version before the facelift.

It has retained the small quirks, e.g. that Apple devices can only be connected via Bluetooth, the glove compartment can be locked but at best may only hold the vehicle documents. The fact that in the convertible you shouldn't stow the charging cables in the cavity of the lower flap, but you can't open the front bonnet normally, where they might fit inside.

The latter is where the carousel of surcharges starts. CCS is not available, which would be acceptable for the small battery. But AC with 22 kW is to be payed extra, too. There are no individual items in the surcharge list, only packages. Of course, the Smart is never shown with its simple steel rims at demonstrations. In the configurator mentioned above you can 'admire' them.