- The Smart city-car brand will soon cease operations in the U.S. as its single model, the Fortwo, goes away after the 2019 model year.
- Smart, which is owned by Daimler, had already stopped selling the gasoline-powered Fortwo in America, restricting the lineup to include only the electric model starting in 2017.
- The 2019 Smart EQ Fortwo is still on sale for the time being, starting at $24,650, but won't be around for long.
Smart is officially exiting the U.S. market and will stop importing its all-electric Fortwo city car to North America after the 2019 model year. A spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz said in a statement that the high cost of homologating the Fortwo for the U.S., combined with slow sales, led to the decision. Smart had already dropped the gasoline-powered Fortwo from its lineup in 2017, leaving only the electric Fortwo that was recently rebadged as an EQ model to correspond with Mercedes-Benz's new electric subbrand.
A subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz and parent company Daimler, Smart first arrived in the U.S. in 2008 and sold nearly 25,000 copies of the Fortwo in its first year. Sales have been on a steep decline since then, and the downward trend took a sharp turn when the gasoline models were dropped from the lineup. A paltry 1276 Smart vehicles were sold in the U.S. throughout all of 2018.
Mercedes-Benz says that dealerships will continue to provide service and parts for current owners of both gasoline- and electric-powered Smart Fortwo models. Smart's U.S. website currently lists 82 dealers nationwide that are authorized to service the cars, with 23 of those dealers listed as having Smart inventory.
The 2019 Smart EQ Fortwo will still available for a little while longer, starting at $24,650. It's available in both coupe and convertible models, both of which are powered by an 80-horsepower electric motor. EPA-rated range sits at a short 58 miles for the hardtop and 57 miles for the droptop.
Despite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.
