» News
Smart Power For Us
from KOMOTV Seattle
DETROIT (AP) - America is about to meet a pint-sized pickup.
Calling it the perfect vehicle for an urban society, Smart on Monday unveiled the “for-us,” its tiny take on the classic U.S. pickup truck.
Smart, a division of Germany’s Daimler AG, said the concept vehicle is so small that it could fit in the bed of a traditional pickup and be barely noticed. At the same time, it provides enough room for two people to sit comfortably. The truck’s cargo bed hold spaces to charge the front wheels of two electric bicycles.
The electrically powered concept truck combines the fun and freedom of a pickup with the practicality and ecofriendly aspects of an economy car, Smart Chief Executive Annette Winkler told reporters at the North American International Auto Show.
Concept cars are ways to test out ideas that may or may not go into production.
Here are the highlights of the car:
POWER: Its lithium-ion battery can be fully charged in less than eight hours. It has a 55-kilowatt magneto-electric motor.
SIZE: The truck is 139.6 inches long, nearly three feet longer than Smart’s traditional “fortwo” car.
SPEED: With 96-pound-feet of torque, the “for-us” can go up to 80 mph.
LOOKS: Its interior is mother-of-pearl white and brushed aluminum, with bright yellow seat covers. Instead of a traditional rear-view mirror, a video camera shows the space behind the car on a smart phone mounted above the dash. The truck features Michelin off-road tires mounted on three-spoke wheels with fold-out wing nuts.
CHEERS: The truck’s small size would make it easy to park, especially for city dwellers forced to hunt for street parking daily.
JEERS: Did I mention that this truck is really small? In America, Smart has struggled to sell its tiny cars, which must share the road with much larger vehicles. It’s unclear if a truck this tiny has a chance of catching on.
***
Were the designers inspired by the Honda del Sol, circa 1993-97? A friend of mine had one and it felt teenier than my Honda CRX. No doubt those old Hondas are bigger than this so called pick up truck. Really? What’s next a Fred Flintstone foot pedaled golf cart…sold as a luxury sedan?
Honda Del Sol. It’s Ram Tough.
the aardvark
January 9th, 2012
There is no way in Hell that I would ever drive one of these!
Burrly new year
January 9th, 2012
“…the concept vehicle is so small that it could fit in the bed of a traditional pickup and be barely noticed…”
I’d notice it less if I drove over it.
historicus
January 9th, 2012
SAFETY: You’ll be killed instantly, which is fortunate for you, as Obamacare will not cover the necessary surgeries needed to re-assemble your shattered bones and organs.
Menderman
January 9th, 2012
Fold out wing nuts? Is that invented by Tampax? I hope I never hit one with my 96 F-250 4WD 3 ton real truck…it might scratch the transfer case….
John Difool
January 9th, 2012
It’s basically a car without the trunk hood. You couldn’t even fit a big screen tv back there but it should keep you stocked up in bird food from Whole Foods for at least a month on one trip.
RANDO
January 9th, 2012
That thing would make a good hood ornamant for my truck.
BigFurHat
January 9th, 2012
But can it haul around that woman’s head?
I think not.
Burrly new year
January 9th, 2012
Sigh…..
Remember when they built cars worth stealing?
Bad Brad
January 9th, 2012
I think an important point here is that they are already increasing the sizes of these little POSs. In another 50 years they’ll have gotten back to normal sized vehicles. Don’t ya love product evolution.
Stevo
January 9th, 2012
I never thought I would ever see a car that screamed:
‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.’
Hey, it’s ‘Ram butt tough.’
historicus
January 9th, 2012
@Burrly- I’ll bet the cops wouldn’t lower themselves to pursue you if they saw you hot-wiring one.
BigFurHat
January 9th, 2012
I want one for the house. Like, to go to the kitchen from the bedroom.
John Difool
January 9th, 2012
I’m having a hard time imagining Sam Elliot voicing a commercial for this.
Bad Brad
January 9th, 2012
@historicus. Why would you hot wire it when you could just pick it up and walk off with it? I wonder if this truck comes with a smart dirt bike to put in the bed?
marleenna1959
January 9th, 2012
It can go up so 80 mph but who would want to?
BigFurHat
January 9th, 2012
John Difool
January 9th, 2012
@bfh
Reminds me of a joke:
Ya’ hear about the guy who ran over his wife with a car?
Yea, I have no idea what he was doing driving in the kitchen either.
FreeMan - Save us Sarah
January 9th, 2012
Great, a car that Chevy Volt owners can look down upon.
FreeMan - Save us Sarah
January 9th, 2012
Name – Re-Vol-Ting
DavidD
January 9th, 2012
“SPEED: With 96-pound-feet of torque, the “for-us” can go up to 80 mph.”
Downhill. With a 20-mph tailwind.
The Doktor
January 9th, 2012
It says it can recharge in 8 hours but nowhere does it say how FAR you can travel with it before it needs recharging.
BTW – At my job I sometimes get home at midnight and have to leave for work at 7am. AND, I work 40 miles from home. I’ll let the engineering geniuses that make these Hot Wheels do the math for my situation and go back to the drawing board to make a vehicle EVERYONE can drive.
woody
January 9th, 2012
Looks like a Reebok on wheels.
mmm
January 9th, 2012
I can fit 8 foot lengths of wood and 10 foot lengths of pvc in my Civic with the trunk closed.
This “truck” is a joke.
SgtZim
January 9th, 2012
I bet they’ll also fit in the canal without much fuss!
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3937178
Mr. Chris
January 9th, 2012
That’s not a truck – I can get a 20 foot extension ladder in a truck.
Calling that a truck is like calling the zero administration a victory for America.
Menderman
January 9th, 2012
Is this part of Obamacare? No need for death panels if we all drive the POS’s:
http://media.komonews.com/images/070807_SR_169_fatal.jpg
jwm
January 9th, 2012
But wait you guys!
It’s eco-friendly!
We all want to be eco-friendly, and save the earth and all, right?
JWM
Ray
January 9th, 2012
My German grandfather (Opa) used to drive a car that looked like one of these. East German socialist mobile….JUST SAY NO!!!
Hey wait a minute…we’ve seen this before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY
.
Chuck U Farley
January 9th, 2012
Which end is the front end?
Crabby Poppet
January 9th, 2012
And I thought being seen in a Volt would be embarrassing. It looks like a souped-up Good Humor cart.
TooMuchTime
January 9th, 2012
What?!?! Unless I miss my guess, it’s still one car to one parking space. You have to hunt for a parking space whether you pedal one of these things around or drive a ’59 Cadillac.
Walk off with it? Hell! You’d be less conspicuous if you hacky-sacked it down the road.
old_oaks
January 9th, 2012
Lol! These things are going to be great during the riots!
They’re so light, you can almost throw them!
Corona
January 9th, 2012
The look on that guys’ face in the first pic…”No, really…I’m a man.”
Lylelovett666
January 9th, 2012
You know who made a great truck?Back in the eighties this company called yugo made a great truck.Also I remember in the 70s my dad had a crazy truck made by volkswagon.The bed was in the front of the truck!
J-Mac
January 9th, 2012
Imagine you’re at a stop light in that thing. Imagine an 80,000 pound Kenworth coming up behind you. Imagine his brakes fail. Yeah. Imagine.
FreeMan - Save us Sarah
January 9th, 2012
2012 shopping carts are in.
TooMuchTime
January 9th, 2012
Reminds me of the commercial for their first car.
Unsafe.
Menderman
January 9th, 2012
I am waiting for the ad that shows Tom Kruse taking it to the Grand Canyon!
Janif
January 9th, 2012
No – I think was copied (stolen?) from the Suzuki x90, which I have been trying to find for years – if anyone has one to get rid of let me know. THAT was a cute (but weird), fuel-efficient two seater with a T-top – a used one would still get better gas mileage now than a lot of the hybrids out there.
Kurt P
January 9th, 2012
Funny how a pshychobilly band is cutting edge in looking at these eco-mobiles…
http://youtu.be/WlyQ0JjyNis
geofraz
January 9th, 2012
There will never be an affordable electric car that is anything more than a glorified golf cart!
even steven
January 9th, 2012
It should be legal to tar and feather whoever called that thing a truck.
grayjohn
January 9th, 2012
Another green POS death trap.
Claudia
January 9th, 2012
@SgtZim, VERY funny clip! Thanks for sharing.
Chieftain
January 9th, 2012
So how many shovels full of gravel will it hold??
I can (and have) strapped 16′ cedar 2/4 lumber to the cargo rack on top of my Tracker, and I hauled a sheet of 1/2″ plywood home today.
I’d worry about putting a box of nails in the back of that thing….
Commissar M
January 9th, 2012
And hey, the “regular” Smart has been such a shining success, why not another one?
I can’t figure this out. There are about 4 of the “Fortwo” running around my town and they just look dangerously small. Maybe they’re great in a crowded, ancient European city with other toy-sized cars but on American roads, they make absolutely no damn sense.
They fail entirely to take into account American geography, infrastructure, other vehicles on the road and just the sheer damn size of the country. In Europe, you could travel a whole country in the same time and distance it takes to cross many states. American cities are nowhere near as old or as tightly packed as many European cities, meaning they can more easily accommodate larger vehicles.
Bad Brad
January 9th, 2012
This is sad. I blame all this on Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDU5BU_qSJU&NR=1&feature=endscreen
/
Ernest T. Bass
January 10th, 2012
Cute…but it won’t get your ass out of a bind like a v8, 4wd mud slingin’ gas guzzlin’ “real” truck.
wolfman
January 10th, 2012
Why hotwire? Just put a dolly under the front end and wheel it away. I’d bet I could walk it to an alley and throw a come-along to get it in my truck. Would barely be worth the fuel to recycle it though, so don’t bother. When I want mileage, I’ll stick wuth my old cb750. 50+ mpg and still smoke those hopped up import cars. If you’re going to take your life in your hands, at least have fun, right?
LoveitorLeaveit
January 10th, 2012
My Radio Flyer was bigger…and hauled more!
LadyGun12
January 10th, 2012
Not that I would be caught dead in that thing, but they’d have to use the jaws of life to pry my butt out of it. No thanks. I’ll keep my F-150 Super Crew.
plf5403
January 10th, 2012
The new way to “come out” to the world. It’s the Smart Company’s new Metro-Sexual. It just screams G-A-Y, all day.
MNHawk
January 10th, 2012
Well, let’s see. They cost as much as any other small car, with much more passenger/cargo room, and they don’t get better gas mileage than any other car with much more passenger/cargo room.
But then we already knew that as the products/people/policy with “smart” in the label, is anything but.
Bob M.
January 10th, 2012
I look forward to crushing it with my Hemi-powered Jeep Commander!
Major Mal function
January 10th, 2012
I’m positive it’s the perfect pickup … for two dudes in a live-in relationship.