Which car brand can do without an SUV? Smart will convert to it with a small electric propulsion model. Fruit of the partnership with the Chinese manufacturer Geely, this pocket adventurer expected in 2023 will be presented in the form of a concept car at the Munich show in September.
[Mise à jour du 25/08/2021] The first official release of this Smart SUV will be at the Munich Motor Show (September 7 to 12). The model will be one of the many novelties exhibited by the Daimler group.
TO READ. Munich Motor Show (2021). All the news from A to Z
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The idea of enriching the range with an SUV is not new to Smart. A very successful prototype, called Smart ForMore, should have been unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2005. But following the commercial failures of the Smart Roadster and Smart Forfour, the brand, whose finances were in the red at the time, did not give the green light for the industrialization of its SUV. With this new leisure vehicle project, expected in 2023, the situation is clearly different.
TO READ. Smart ForMore: the SUV that Smart has never marketed
An SUV that reinvents Smart
Smart publishes today, as a teaser, the first official sketches of its future SUV known internally under the code HX11, we were talking to you about it in January 2021. A machine with a format close to 4 meters long with a fluid and dynamic style, topped with a floating pavilion perfect for offering personalization is not lacking in appeal.
Gorden Wagener, the design director of the brands of the Daimler group (Mercedes-Benz, Smart and Maybach), told our colleagues atAutoExpress than ” the style of this future SUV will be different from that of the Smart Fortwo and that this model will be an opportunity to reinvent the brand ”. In other words, a design ” cool, sexy and grown-up instead of the usually cute and playful formal register.e ”. The refined shape of the optics announces this new aesthetic language. However, personalization will be as important as on the brand’s city cars, judging by the two-tone finish and the patterns on the roof.
An electric SUV designed in China
Another asset is its 100% electric technical base developed in partnership with the Chinese manufacturer Geely which has 50% of the shares of Smart and which also owns the manufacturer Volvo. This platform called SEA, acronym for Sustainable Experience Architecture, will be shared with the future small Swedish SUV Volvo XC20. To start its career, the Smart SUV will have an electric motor positioned at the rear delivering a power of 250 hp. But its scalable platform can also be equipped with two or three electric machines. Housed in the floor, the lithium-ion type battery with a capacity approaching 70 kWh will offer a range of around 500 km according to the NEDC cycle (protocol in force in China). And to fill up with watts, the charge will be fast using 800-volt technology.
TO READ. Automotive production. European cars “made in China”
What rivals for the Smart SUV?
The future Smart SUV will not only target China, its arrival is also planned in Europe, it is expected in Germany from 2022 and should invest France at the beginning of 2023. It will find on its way, the replacement of the Toyota Aygo which will also bet on a spirit of small SUV. The only possible way out for 4-seater city cars?
