Second Generation
The second generation was introduced in 2009 to 18 markets with the objective to gather experience about how customers use and charge electric vehicles. Daimler initially planned to built 1,000 vehicles, but as demand exceeded the company’s expectations, more than 2,000 Smart Fortwo electric drive cars were produced. The electric cars were available for leasing or through the Car2Go carsharing service in San Diego, Amsterdam and Vancouver.> Production of the second-generation Smart Fortwo electric drive began in November 2009 in Hambach, France. The Smart EDs have a lithium-ion battery provided by Tesla Motors with capacity of 14 kilowatt-hours (50 MJ). The range of a fully charged battery is up to 135 kilometres (84 miles) under the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) cycle.
As part of a three-phase roll-out program, phase two began with field testing in Berlin in December 2009 with 100 units out of 300 that will be deploy in Germany. For phase two 1,500 cars were produced, and field tested in Hamburg, Paris, Rome, Milan, Pisa, London, the English Midlands, Madrid, Zurich, Portugal, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands during the first half of 2010. In October 2010, 250 units were made available for field testing in several cities in the United States. Testing also was conducted in Canada; and in 2011 in selected markets in Asia.
2011 Smart ED rear viewPhase three of the program is mass production, which was scheduled to begin with the 2012 model year. In the United States sales were scheduled to begin in 2012 with the 2013 model year. On July 2011 an agreement was reached between Daimler AG and Robert Bosch GmbH to develop and produce innovative traction motors for electric vehicles. Based on this joint venture, Daimler planned to use the improved traction motors with the new generation of Smart electric drive cars scheduled to go on sale in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Smart Electric Drive
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