2017 smart fortwo Review, Ratings, Specs, Prices, and Photos

The 2017 Smart Fortwo is the second year of a complete redesign for the tiny two-seat car, and this year the Cabrio soft-top convertible has rejoined the lineup. Both body styles remain at 8.8 feet long, but they're wider and more modern than the previous generation, with a better array of standard and optional features.

The Fortwo can be ordered in four different trim levels—known as Pure, Passion, Prime, and Proxy—and the company offers a wealth of options that make it unlikely Smart drivers will see a car identical to the one they've ordered.

The little Smart minicar is perfect for buyers who need a car that's easier to park on crowded streets than any other vehicle sold in the U.S. But its two seats and very limited cargo space, not to mention fuel economy that's decent but hardly exceptional, mean it's significantly compromised for pretty much everyone else.

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Its overall rating reflects those limitations; we score it at 5.2 out of 10. (Read more about how we rate cars this year.)

Smart Fortwo styling and performance

The lines of the 2017 Smart retain the perky styling, snub nose, and passenger compartment outlined by the Tridion safety cage, usually in a contrasting color. The wheels sit at the very corners of the vehicle. But the front end is more clearly defined now, and the short hood is less beveled than before, giving better pedestrian protection. The "grille" between the lights is no more than a blanking panel perforated with holes, and all Smarts have LED running lights.The door windows are frameless, and the tailgate is split horizontally: upper portion opens for access while the lower half flips down to provide a useful temporary surface.

The second-generation Smart finally gets a modern interior. It's still simple, but different trim colors and a variety of rounded shapes give it a more substantial feel. A small instrument cluster behind the wheel has the usual gauges, and two eyeball vents sit on top of the dash. A touchscreen display sits slightly proud of the central console.

A turbocharged 0.9-liter 3-cylinder engine, making 89 horsepower and 100 pound-feet of torque, is mounted between the rear wheels. A 5-speed manual gearbox is standard, and a 6-speed dual-clutch transmission provides automated shifting for those who prefer it. (Smart says four out of five customers will order the automated option.) Combined EPA fuel economy is 34 or 35 mpg, slightly lower than last year due to changes in the EPA test calculations. Smart says 0-to-60-mph acceleration is 10.5 seconds for the DCT, 10.1 seconds for the manual.

The 2017 Smart feels like a compact car behind the wheel, if you don't look over your shoulder. The turning circle is an astoundingly small 22.8 feet from curb to curb, or 24 feet between two walls. That makes the Fortwo pretty much the most maneuverable car you can buy, and a perfect urban warrior. Thankfully, it's now more capable on the highway than the old one was, and the ride is quieter and smoother under almost every circumstance. Given its small size, noise is well suppressed for such a small car, and it's simply a much more pleasant vehicle to drive or ride in than the first generation.

Comfort, safety, and features

The Fortwo hasn't yet been rated for crash safety by either the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. All models come standard with eight airbags, and a standard Crosswind Assist function keeps the Smart straight during side winds. Forward-collision warning is available as an option.

Beyond the base ForTwo Pure, the Passion, Prime, and Proxy trim levels provide a mix of different features, using interior trim and fittings to give the different models distinct characters. All new Smarts include power windows, central locking, LED daytime running lights, cruise control, power steering, and audio and other controls on the steering wheel. The audio system includes a CD player, Bluetooth streaming for playing music and hands-free commands. The instrument cluster includes a 3.5-inch color display, and a trip computer and an exterior temperature display are also standard.

A top-end JBL sound system with eight speakers and a 240-watt amplifier should provide substantial sound in the small cabin. Other infotainment options include smartphone integration and a navigation system with real-time traffic and weather data. The Smart Cross Connect app lets owners access their car and other useful functions while away from the vehicle.

Pricing starts below $16,000 including delivery, and Smart says a fully loaded model with multiple high-end options runs between $20,000 and $21,000. The Cabrio model with a roll-back cloth roof has been added this year; a redesigned Electric Drive version joins the lineup soon.

2014 smart fortwo Review, Ratings, Specs, Prices, and Photos

The 2014 Smart ForTwo minicar is now a very old vehicle, with a design dating back to the 1990s. It's due for replacement, probably in the 2016 model year, with an all-new design that retains the rear-mounted engine between the rear wheels, but should otherwise bring the littlest car sold in the U.S. into the current decade and give buyers the same conveniences, features, and cabin quality as other small cars.

Until then, the current version soldiers on, providing bare-bones transportation to buyers for whom the shortest possible length trumps all other considerations. It's small, but it's also outdated and crude, and its gasoline powertrain is just as lurchy and unpleasant to drive as it was in 2008 when the car first launched in the U.S. The all-electric version introduced last year is far more pleasant, though still primitive inside--and considerably pricier than the conventional Smart, though remarkably good lease deals can cut the cost for some buyers to about $200 a month.

The ForTwo remains the shortest, least powerful car you can buy in the U.S. Here, the niche for two-seat cars less than 10 feet long is very small, and there aren't a lot of competitors. Its iconic design highlights the 'Tridion' safety cage around the passengers in a different color. External changes over seven years are limited to updated front and rear bumper shields, door sill moldings, and the brand's logo, which moved from the hood to the grille last year.

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Smarts attract attention wherever they go, even on the streets of New York City and San Francisco, simply because they're so tiny--just 8 feet and 10 inches long. The Coupe version is the least expensive model; there's also a Cabrio version with a powered cloth roof that rolls back on rails above the doors, similar to that of the Fiat 500c Cabrio.

Inside the Smart, it doesn't feel as small as it actually is. The two seats will hold adults more than six feet tall comfortably, with ample headroom and legroom. There's only minimal storage space behind the seats, however, because the engine sits essentially under the high load-deck floor, just behind the passengers' backsides. Inside, the instrument panel was updated for 2011, taking the car's interior from spartan to plain. The matte trim sets off hard textured plastics, though the higher trim level at least looks modern if simple. New fabrics were introduced in 2012, along with standard net pockets on the seats.

The seating position is high, so occupants don't feel low to the ground, and outward visibility is good. It's only when reversing that it becomes obvious the car ends less than two feet behind the driver's shoulders. In urban traffic, it takes a while to get used to just how short the Smart really is--but once a driver learns the limits of the car's bodywork, it can be maneuvered and parked like no other vehicle.

No other vehicle, at any rate, except perhaps the Scion iQ--which is almost as short as the Smart, but offers more modern conveniences (along with a part-time third seat and a vestigial fourth position for a small child). The Scion is almost $3,000 more expensive than the aging Smart, and its clever design does offer more interior room, but both cars essentially fall into the same very-very-very-small-city-car category--and each sells only about 10,000 copies a year.

Starting in 2013, the Smart was offered with two powertrains: gasoline or battery electric. The 70-horsepower, 1.0-liter three-cylinder gasoline engine is mated to an automated manual gearbox in the non-electric models, and the combination is one of our least favorite powertrains. It takes a lot of training for drivers to learn when to lift on and off the accelerator to avoid jerky, slamming shifts and a lot of pitching back and forth on the ForTwo's extremely short wheelbase. The gasoline Smarts do fine in 0-to-30-mph city traffic, but they aren't much good above 50 mph, losing steam and taking a very long time to get to freeway speeds. It's capable of sustained 75-mph speeds, but you've got to be patient.

Handling around town is fun; the manual steering provides good feedback, and experienced drivers will zip around tight corners and make quick U-turns with ease. The brakes are more than adequate, and of course, parking in unparalleled.. On the highway, the ForTwo is noisy, its ride is nervous and hard, and it requires intestinal fortitude to travel at freeway speeds between two semis in a Smart.

Ask anyone what kind of gas mileage a gasoline Smart gets, and people assume wild efficiencies: 60 mpg or 75 mpg. Not even close; its combined EPA rating is 36 mpg, or far below any Toyota Prius hybrid. The other obvious issue is safety, and the Smart has four airbags and decent--though far from top-of-the-heap--crash-test ratings, along with the usual suite of electronic safety systems.

The Smart Electric Drive, actually a third-generation powertrain introduced for 2013, is really the car the Smart should have been all along. The electric motor dispenses with a transmission, removing the annoying automated shifting, and the electric motor delivers smooth power in a far quieter, less raucous way than the gasoline engine. You'll have to accelerate hard to make the electric Smart perform--it has one of the stiffest accelerator pedals we've experienced--not to mention that you'll need a place to recharge its 17.6-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery. But its performance is decent, again best in 0-to-30-mph city driving, and its electric range of 68 miles makes it a very practical city car and much nicer to experience than the gasoline Smart.

The limited-edition Smart Fortwo Electric Drive, which weighs several hundred pounds more and has a somewhat different weight distribution than other Fortwo versions, earns four stars overall, with four stars for frontal impact and four stars for side impact in the federal test; but the federal government isn't extending those results to the gasoline Smart models. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has given the Fortwo family 'good' scores for frontal, side, and roof strength protection, but it earns 'acceptable' in rear impact and hasn't been tested in the tougher new small overlap frontal test.

The Smart ForTwo Pure entry-level gasoline model starts below $13,000, and for 2014, Smart has made air conditioning standard on even the entry-level Pure model. It also added standard floormats on both Pure and the higher Passion trim level. Cruise control and even a basic "Entryline" radio remain options, along with niceties like ambient lighting.

Then there's the high-end Passion model, which adds a radio with USB port, cruise control, aluminum wheels, a sport steering wheel, power windows and mirrors, automatic headlights, rain-sensing wipers, and a panoramic glass roof for the Coupe model. Throw in any of the many personalization options from your dealer, which now include appearance features from the discontinued Brabus sporty model, and you can reach $20,000.

The Smart Electric Drive is $25,000 with a much higher level of standard equipment (though not cruise control). The electric Smart is the least expensive plug-in electric car offered in the U.S., and it's offered with the company's Battery Assurance Plus program, which effectively leases the battery--whether the car itself is bought or leased. At a newly reduced monthly lease price of just $139 for lessees who opt into Battery Assurance (almost everyone does), it's a very low monthly payment on top of the much lower cost-per-mile of driving on grid electricity rather than gasoline.

As the current model winds down its life, Smart is offering various limited editions, both nationally and "crowd-sourced" local editions. During 2013, there were three--the Fuzz, CityFlame, and Cocoa editions, all with 300 or less offered--and starting in September 2013, there will be two new ones: the BoConcept edition, in partnership with the Scandinavian modern-design store, and the first electric limited edition, created by designer Jeremy Scott.

The Smart's sole advantage is its tiny length, which in crowded cities like New York or San Francisco will let owners park it where no other vehicle can. For a handful of buyers, that's justification enough. For everyone else, you can get more modern, more capacious subcompact or compact cars with more features and equal or better fuel efficiency for roughly the same price as a nicely-equipped Smart.

'Smart Car' Technology May Make Roads Safer, but Some Fear Data Hacks

Autonomous vehicles are the wave of a rapidly approaching future that is already bringing increasing amounts of “smart” technology to cars and trucks, and could eventually make passengers of everyone in a vehicle.

Experts say smart cars will make the roads exponentially safer by taking the automobile’s weak link — its human driver — out of the equation.

Accidents would decline 90% by 2050, according to professional services company KPMG in a June report on the impact autonomous vehicles will have on the insurance industry.

This can be accomplished, according to those involved in the research, because artificial intelligence and machine learning would make the computer “brain” driving autonomous cars and trucks far better at making decisions than humans, whose errors today cause 94% of car crashes.

“The computer brain is programmed. You’re pretty sure reliably what it’s going to do. But the human brain? Who knows,” said Carla Bailo, assistant vice president for mobility research and business development at Ohio State University.

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OSU is pioneering research into autonomous vehicles, helping make Ohio a key player nationally in the development of technology that could revolutionize driving. Ohio State’s partners include the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ohio Turnpike and the Transportation Research Center (TRC) in West Liberty, the nation’s largest independent automotive testing and proving ground.

“With our research we do have some of the really ‘out there,’ (things) that you wouldn’t even recognize as a vehicle in its current state,” said Joanna Pinkerton, TRC chief operating officer.

Game-changing technology

Fully-autonomous vehicle technology, along with the growing prevalence of high technology driver assistance features like automatic braking and lane departure warnings, are touted as game-changing ways to reduce roadway deaths.

Advocates say autonomous and “connected” vehicles, which can communicate with each other via the internet and wireless local networks, will also move more traffic more efficiently, reduce congestion and pollution and provide transportation to elderly and disabled people who cannot drive today’s conventional cars.

A range of capabilities and technologies encompass the term “autonomous,” but essentially it involves the car, truck or transit vehicle having the ability to navigate roadways, make key decisions on its own and have communication connectivity. In practice today, the autonomous cars on the road still have a person in the vehicle able to take control where necessary.

In the future, however, that may not even be needed. By 2050, or maybe sooner, fully-autonomous cars could be tooling down the road without a steering wheel, pedals for braking and acceleration or a driver.

“There are not any (autonomous vehicles) just running around by themselves. There’s always somebody in the car until we have confidence, or until the manufacturer has confidence that the car knows enough to go on its own,” Bailo said. “And nobody’s there yet.”

‘Not ready for prime time’

In many ways, though, the future is already here.

Tesla Inc. is selling cars with autopilot, allowing drivers to take hands off the wheel and car to navigate itself. Both Uber and Waymo, the company formed to run the self-driving car project started by Google in 2009, are testing autonomous vehicles on the road. And across the world automotive companies are working furiously to come up with the next big thing in autonomous technology.

“There are a lot of people who are really beginning to equate this with the advent of the horseless carriage and the emergence of both the telephone and the automotive industries,” said Randy Cole, executive director of the Ohio Turnpike. “It’s disruptive. It’s exciting. And it has the potential for great economic benefit and quality of life issues.”

But the promise of these advanced auto technologies comes with an array of challenges — both technological and practical.

“It’s not ready for prime time,” said veteran auto industry analyst David Cole, co-founder and chairman of “The concern at this point is that it is probably overhyped.”

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“Companies are saying ‘we’re going to have something here in 2021 or 2019. It’s leading the public to believe it’s really close,” he said. “The people who think, ‘I’m going to take a trip while sleeping in the back seat,’ that’s probably 20 or 30 years away.”

Tests of self-driving cars have largely gone well, though they haven’t been without setbacks. The Google/Waymo cars have been involved in a variety of crashes — often blamed on other drivers — and in 2016 a man was killed in a collision with a semi-truck in Florida while operating his Tesla Model S on autopilot. On Sept. 12 the National Transportation Safety Board blamed both drivers and the Tesla autopilot feature for the fatal crash, citing driver errors, over-reliance on automation, and a lack of vehicle safeguards.

“We appreciate the NTSB’s analysis of last year’s tragic accident and we will evaluate their recommendations as we continue to evolve our technology,” a Tesla spokesperson who declined to be named said in an emailed response. “We will also continue to be extremely clear with current and potential customers that Autopilot is not a fully self-driving technology and drivers need to remain attentive at all times.”

High tech autos also rely on Web-based technology, and their computers collect vast swaths of information, raising concerns about cyber security, privacy protection and ownership of data.

Safeguards are needed “to protect the data and to ensure that these products are not hacked,” Bailo said. “That bad guys won’t try to do something either to the vehicle or infrastructure, because either way it can create dire consequences.”

Potential problems

Some of the concerns about autonomous vehicles stem from how they might respond to road hazards and weather.

The so-called smart technology relies on an array of sensors — both on the car and in roadside equipment — that could get dirty, covered with snow or damaged. Some roadways don’t have clearly marked lanes, or can get obscured by snow, creating another hazard.

Manufacturers will need to determine how to program the vehicle to respond correctly to the many unexpected occurrences that can happen while driving, said David Cole, using the example of a deer running into the road. The conventional wisdom is to hit the deer, rather than swerve and potentially hit another car or a tree or flip into a ditch.

“But a child on a bike, that is a whole different story,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to sense and make good decisions really quickly. It’s when you have two choices, neither of which are very good, and you’ve got to pick one of them.”

Cole believes these types of technological issues will ultimately be resolved, but he also pointed out a potential legal pitfall for manufacturers. Most crashes today do not lead to a lawsuit against the company that built the car. But if there is no driver or the car is making key decisions for a driver, the manufacturer of that vehicle could be held liable, he said.

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Interacting with traditional cars is one of the major challenges the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles face, said Bailo. Even if driverless cars become a common sight on the roads, plenty of drivers will be piloting their own vehicles for decades.

‘We want everybody to be on the same page’

As with any new technology, there is no consistency across the country as far as laws and regulations governing autonomous vehicles. For example, in Ohio it isn’t legal to operate a vehicle with no steering wheel. And only a few states even have laws allowing self-driving vehicles.

Nor have the auto and tech industries settled on standards so that vehicles all speak the same language.

“We don’t want to see a Beta vs. VHS-type battle in this. We want everybody to be on the same page,” said Matt Bruning, spokesman for ODOT. “Toyotas need to be able to speak to Hondas and Fords and Chevys.”

There also is the issue of jobs. If a semi-truck or transit vehicle no longer needs a driver, that could put people out of work, said Kara Deniz, spokesperson for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

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Kevin Burch, president of Jet Express Trucking in Dayton and chairman of American Trucking Associations, doesn’t believe drivers should be worried.

“We are going to need human beings in the cabs of our trucks, I think, for a long time,” Burch said. “I will say this: The safety benefits and the technologies that we can put in these trucks are going to make these drivers more efficient and it’s going to make it a more attractive career.”

Public acceptance slow to come

Even as researchers move forward, large portions of the general public are concerned about the safety of “driverless or automated cars,” with 36% saying they have major concerns and 39% having minor concerns, according to a February poll by The National Safety Council, a non-profit group that focuses on stopping preventable deaths. 71% agreed that the idea of a car driving itself made them uncomfortable.

“Obviously the thought of letting go of the steering wheel when you are doing 70 miles an hour isn’t comforting,” said Bob Kazmierczak, director of automotive products for the American Automobile Association.

A 2016 AAA survey found that more than half of U.S. drivers feel less safe about sharing the road with a self-driving vehicle. Women were more likely than men to feel less safe.

And there is this: Many people love to drive and will be loathe to give it up.

Deborah Hersman, president and chief executive of the NSC said some manufacturers and people believe vehicles will always need to have a human operator to take over driving when necessary, while others see fully self-driving vehicles as the future of automobiles.

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“Regardless of the level of autonomy, we know that active safety system integration into the U.S. fleet will be more robust in years to come,” Hersman said in testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee considering an autonomous vehicle bill that passed in the U.S. House earlier this month.

“As these features continue to penetrate the driving world, we can expect to see changes in the very definition of the word ‘driver.’”

Although it may be awhile before driverless cars are populating the roadways in large numbers, advances in vehicle autonomy are coming quickly. Within five years, say experts, those vehicles could be used to navigate “geo-fenced” areas, such as college campuses or senior living communities.

The first of these will probably show up in places like Singapore, China, Tokyo and San Francisco “because their congestion and population growth are going to become unmanageable,” Bailo said.

Ohio’s role

Last November, an Uber-owned Volvo semi-truck hauled an ODOT brine tanker along Interstates 70 and 270 and U.S 33 from Columbus to Bellefontaine.

The driver took the wheel at construction zones and at the exit to Bellefontaine. Otherwise, technology guided the vehicle using GPS (accurate within one centimeter), radar, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) features and camera sensors that kept the truck within the lines and accurately found the ODOT facility.

“From a witness perspective it was the most exciting boring drive I’ve ever had in my entire life,” said Andrew Bremer, ODOT deputy director of strategic initiatives, who rode along with the driver.

Ohio has a huge role in the testing being done on autonomous vehicles.

The state and OSU are jointly funding a $45 million, 540-acre Smart Mobility Advanced Research and Test Center (SMART) at the TRC for state-of-the-art testing of autonomous vehicles. It is expected to open next summer.

In Columbus, OSU’s Center for Automotive Research is also testing two autonomous Ford Fusion cars, working with manufacturers to perfect those systems, according to Bailo. And an autonomous shuttle — outfitted with an emergency stop button but no steering wheel or pedals — will be piloted on campus, she said.

ODOT is building a 35-mile “smart technology corridor” along U.S. 33 from Columbus to the TRC and a 23-mile corridor along I-270. Fiber optic cable and roadside “dedicated short-range communications units” will transmit information between vehicles and to ODOT and its vehicles, Bremer said.

The corridors will allow better testing of connected vehicle technology using actual road conditions, and also give ODOT a jump on common crash culprits like black ice. ODOT vehicles will be retrofitted with connected technology, so when a vehicle linked electronically through connected technology to other cars on the roadway hits ice it not only communicates that information to those vehicles but contacts ODOT, which can then deploy salt trucks to the area.

Cellular technology will be also be used to test a smart corridor on I- 90 from I-271 to the Pennsylvania state line, officials say.

The Ohio Turnpike has plans to deploy a fiber optic cable and sensor system along a 60-mile stretch in Lorain, Cuyahoga, Summit and Portage counties. Among the tests: truck “platooning,” which involves driving vehicles close together using vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Platooning could reduce congestion and save fuel due to decreased wind resistance, turnpike officials say.

New laws

Since 2012, 41 states and Washington, D.C., have considered autonomous vehicle legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-one of them passed laws and governors in three others issued executive orders regarding autonomous vehicles, NCSL said.

In Ohio, a bill that would have banned self-driving cars failed to pass last year.

Nevada was the first state to legalize the operation of autonomous vehicles with no human operator and California approved a pilot program for the Bay Area that allows fully autonomous vehicles with no operator, steering wheel, or brake and accelerator pedal. Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Michigan are among states that currently allow operation of driverless autonomous vehicles, according to the NCSL.

U.S. Rep. Robert Latta, (R-Bowling Green), sponsored the SELF DRIVE Act in Congress, a bill facilitating autonomous vehicle development. It passed on a unanimous voice vote in the House in August and is now being considered by the U.S. Senate.

Latta said he wants to avoid having a patchwork of rules that don’t mesh with each other.

“This is not being driven by the federal government. This is a private sector initiative out there,” Latta said of the fast-moving industry. “We have to make sure as they go forward to make sure that the right laws and regulations are in place. We can’t have 50 states and the District of Columbia saying, ‘This is what we want.’”

Bailo, who retired from Nissan in 2014 as head of research and development for North and South America, said she used to be most excited about launching new vehicles.

That’s been rivaled now by advances in vehicle artificial intelligence, she said, which could mean fewer people die horrible deaths on the road, the elderly gain increased mobility and the disabled become freer to explore life.