The SMART Car is coming to the U.S. ... of course, it's already been imported (legally) to the U.S. That effort was run by ZAP a company more famous for electric vehicles of all sizes (ZAP meaning Zero Air Pollution) who imported cars they commercially bought in Germany and had an American company revamp the cars to meet DOT compliance. The new plan is for Daimler Chrysler to import the cars themselves.
The author of the article spends the hole time in reaction to the small size. As usual the "different" gizmo meets with initial "eeew, that's so strange" reactions. Yes, it's a small car but so what? Why do we need huge vehicles to haul us around? If most of our driving is one person alone in a car, then why do they need a car designed for four people? Especially when the car designed for one or two people can get tremendously better gas mileage!!!
Then there's this little bit of eeeew that's so strange: the fact that it doesn't go very fast, capping out at 84 miles per hour ... I dunno about you, but 84 miles per hour is pretty darn speedy. That is unless you're in Montana or Idaho or Nevada. But very few people live in those states, and for most people, especially the city dwellers for whom this car is meant would find that speed very comfortable.
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