smart is bringing back the tiny two-seater, and the #2 debuts in Paris
The city car smart built its name on is finally coming back
After years of building crossovers, smart is returning to what made it famous. The #2 is a fully electric two-seater with the short, wheels-at-each-corner proportions of the original fortwo, and it will have its world premiere at the Paris Motor Show in October. Right now, it is being beaten up on test tracks across the world.
Back to proper city car proportions
The #2 is a fully electric two-seat city car, and smart is leaning hard on the design signature that made the brand recognisable in the first place: compact dimensions with the wheels pushed right out to the corners, maximising interior space within the smallest possible footprint. It sits on smart's Electric Compact Architecture and features a next-generation version of the tridion safety cage, the structural shell that has been a smart hallmark since the beginning.
A punishing test programme
This announcement is really about validation, and the list is thorough. The #2 has been through the wind tunnel, an acoustic chamber and a temperature-controlled four-column test rig, alongside work on test tracks and public roads. Engineers have run it over rough asphalt, grooved concrete, high-speed lanes and urban streets with deep potholes, with specific attention to kerb strikes and pothole impacts for durability.
Tuned for the city, not the spec sheet
The engineering focus tells you a lot about the brief. smart lists urban manoeuvrability around obstacles, emergency evasive handling, wet-weather behaviour, suspension refinement and steering ratio among the priorities, plus extensive noise, vibration and harshness work. There is even attention to tyre compounds, balancing low rolling resistance against noise reduction. The camouflage wrap, incidentally, was designed together with the Mercedes-Benz design team.
What we still don't know
Quite a lot, in truth. smart has not released any powertrain details, battery capacity or range figures, nor pricing, and it did not disclose test distances or the temperatures involved. Those answers should arrive when the covers come off in Paris in October. Encouragingly, we will be there: AutoNext is reporting live from the show, where smart joins brands like Zeekr on a busy stand list.
AutoNext Take
This is exactly what we hoped smart would do. The brand lost its way somewhat by chasing the crossover market, when its real gift was building genuinely tiny cars that made cramped European cities navigable. A two-seat electric city car with the original's proportions, and this much engineering effort spent on potholes, kerbs and NVH rather than raw numbers, suggests smart understands what made it special.
The unanswered question is price, because that is what will decide whether it is a charming novelty or a serious urban proposition. Small cars are having a moment, as the Fiat Multiplina concept showed, and Europe badly needs affordable ones. We will find out in Paris.
