Smart change takes a different direction and we lose our way

Between abandoned micro-city cars and an improbable sedan, the manufacturer intrigues. But what is Smart playing at?

Smart, famous for its micro-city cars and, more recently, its compact electric SUVs, seems to be losing track of its strategy. With its first sedan, the #6, the manufacturer makes a radical shift that is hard to understand. Abandoning the micro-city car segment a few years ago could be justified. SUVs were clearly in vogue at that time. But unfortunately for these small urban models, now electric, they are making a stunning comeback thanks to traffic restrictions! A bad timing that the manufacturer is trying to correct with the upcoming launch of the #2.

So why venture into a sedan today when this design struggles to appeal to the European public?

Smart has an idea in mind, but which one?

The first images show a large vehicle, close in size to the Mercedes E-Class, but with a fastback silhouette that doesn’t really align with the usual tastes of European customers. With nearly 5 meters in length according to the homologation documents in China, the #6 is far from the small formats that made Smart successful. The idea is simply to attract Chinese customers, who favor stylish sedans, but this logically raises doubts about the model’s availability in the European market in the short term.

Under the hood, Smart adopts the hybrid powertrain from the #5 SUV: a 1.5-liter turbo petrol engine with 161 hp coupled with a 268 hp front electric motor. Two battery options are planned, offering up to 252 km of electric range and over 1,400 km in total, decent figures, but insufficient to justify a less popular design.

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The #6 well illustrates Smart’s difficulty in defining its identity. After winning over city centers with its compact models, the manufacturer is trying to position itself in the premium hybrid segment. The question remains open: will this sedan find an audience in Europe or will it remain a product specifically designed for the Chinese market? You have understood that the second hypothesis is in our favor.

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