I found an AP story last week that mentioned that Columbus will soon be getting a Smart Car dealership. While I’m not totally sold on these cars yet, I think this is great news that we’re being targeted for a dealership so quickly. Personally, I’d love to see their cars getting around double the 40MPG they currently do, because otherwise $12k is a lot to pay for a car of that small size.
Anyway, I hope they do well here in Columbus. I’m sure we’ll see them on the road very soon.
Aww, weak, they are gasoline engines. No wonder they get only 40 mpg. When I first read about these they were producing them with diesel engines and got around 70 mpg, but because companies are hesitant to market diesels in America. It also might have to do with the clean air restrictions in California which tend to prevent diesels from coming to market because of slightly higher emissions. At the same time, the new VW Jetta Wagon planned to come out later this year is clean diesel (revamped to go with the new lower sulfur diesel fuel) and will get somewhere around 60 mpg on the highway. It’s also pretty roomy in comparison to the smart car.
Personally, I won’t be in the market for a new car for a few more years (at least until my current one is paid off for awhile) but when I start looking again, I’ll probably favor a car with a better MPG ratio than a car that has a smaller frame.
Who knows… perhaps the 2012 Smart Car will go through a few revisions by then.
While Robb is right about the benefits of deisels, and the Jetta being presumably more efficient, what he left out was the difference in cost f the Jetta over the TwoFour. The cheapest Jetta, currently, starts at $16.9k and I don’t think it’d be a stretch to put the diesel in the light 20′s, making it doule the cost of the Smart.