Articles

Today the smart 25th Anniversary Edition celebrates its world premiere. With it, smart not only celebrates the market launch of the #3 in Europe, but also the 25th anniversary of the brand.
Reason enough to take a look at the history of smart and take a closer look at the 25th Anniversary Edition.

Together with the European premiere of the smart #3, smart is finally announcing the prices and equipment. The price of the smart #3 is interesting, so that it even competes directly with the smart #1. The first deliveries are announced for early 2024.

Es gibt bereits seit einigen Jahren mehr Ladesäule als Tankstellen und das obwohl man sie nicht braucht.

In 2013, Mercedes Benz presented the SLS AMG electric drive and thus the technical pinnacle of e-mobility at the time. Not only at Mercedes, but worldwide. But how is this car doing after 10 years and over 50,000 km?

The car was limited to 9 unites and was sold only to selected customers. I was lucky enough to experience what is probably the only Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG electric drive live, which has already cracked 50,000 km, and was be able to talk to its owner about his experiences with the car.

In this article, I would like to take a closer look at the SLS AMG electric drive and report on how it does after 50,000 km.

Die etablierten PKW-Hersteller schränken ihre Elektroautos nach wie vor ein, indem sie unnötig bei der Motorleistung sparen.

Es ist ein Thema, welches irgendwie immer eindeutiger sichtbar wird: Etablierte Autohersteller limitieren die Motorleistung ihrer Elektroautos, um deren teure Verbrenner nicht zu sehr ans Leder zu gehen.

In order to stabilize our power grid and still make fast charging possible everywhere, we need storage solutions. But rechargeable batteries are expensive, die after a few thousand cycles and accordingly they are no solution.
At least that's how ZOOZ Power sees it and therefore has a new approach. Instead of batteries, they simply have flywheels. These can be accelerated to 17,000 revolutions per minute. Regaining the power is achieved by slowing them down again and using the motor as generator. The system is said to be significantly more cycle-resistant and significantly cheaper in the medium and long term.

I had the chance to let ZOOZ Power Germany show me such a storage system and explain it to me. It's an exciting topic and you can find my thoughts on it in this article.

Es kann nicht einfach jeder Tesla's Strategie nach machen und mit Oberklassenautos eine Marke aufbauen.

Nun musste selbst LucidMotors mit den Preisen drastisch runter gehen und das obwohl deren Autos grundsätzlich durchaus gut sind. Derweil sind chinesische Anbieter wie Nio und Co schon seit Tag 1 vor allem im Preiskampf mit der Konkurrenz.
Einen Nio kaufen die wenigsten, weil sie einen Nio wollten. Sondern weil der einfach deutlich preiswerter und fast genau so gut ist wie ein Mercedes EQE, aber auch ein Tesla.

The year is 2012 and Mercedes is just introducing its "Electric Drive for all occasions" car family. Daimler was the first classic manufacturer with the full range of modern electric cars. The smart fortwo electric drive was already in its third generation, the B-Class was in the middle of development and came onto the market in 2014. In addition, the SLS AMG electric drive was about to go into series production.
Daimler's cooperation with Tesla was at its peak and both companies had the technology in their pockets for a prosperous future.

Daimler had a complete ecosystem around electric cars. Aside from the range of cars, everything was available for an entire electric car ecosystem. For example, their own windmill, so that all electric cars are climate-neutral, and they had already thought about repairing batteries. Plus their own cell production in Germany and so much more. It's a pity how you left all that and 10 years later have to give big discounts on the EQS so that someone in China still buys it.

Today, Dieter Zetsche drives a smart #1 and OEMs are considering buying additional software from Tesla. Reason enough to take a look at what Daimler has built up over the years and then neglected.

Mit 1.800.000 km ist Herr von Gemmingen's Tesla Model S aus der Garantie raus. Das ist aber kein Grund es nun zu ersetzen, noch lange nicht.

Wir schreiben das Jahr 2016: Herr Müller hält die Fertigung von Akkuzellen in Deutschland für "Blödsinn"

Kurz zuvor hatte Mercedes deren eigene Akkuzellenfertigung in Deutschland wieder aufgeben. Deren Zellen wurden bereits ab 2012 für den damals aktuellen smart electric drive genutzt. Das erste Serien-Elektroauto mit Akkuzellen aus deutscher Fertigung.

It's been 25 years since smart launched the fortwo and started production in Hambach. Over time, of course, there were a lot of small smart fortwos and a total of four generations of the electric drive. But also many other cool other cars.

BRABUS, Crossblade, Roadster and even an SUV in 2004. Let's go back into the history of smart and keep an eye on the most notable cars and milestones.
smart is also talking about smart times again...

Sicherheitsmangel beim Ora Funky Cat, titelt der ADAC. Und wieder einmal ist es ein Thema, bei dem mir eine umfangreiche Erklärung seitens des ADAC fehlt.

Nun bekennt sich auch MercedesBenz zu Tesla's sogenanntem NACS Standard.

Es ist schon spannend:
Ford, GM, Polestar, Mercedes… alle haben sie inhaltlich die gleiche Pressemitteilung. Ab 2024 Adapter und ab 2025 NACS am Auto.

I have now had the basic version of the smart #1 for thee weeks and 2.000 km. And although I'm actually used to my fully equipped BRABUS, I think it's a really great car. In terms of equipment, it lacks almost nothing at all and over long distances it is just as good as the BRABUS.

The basic smart #1 already has a lot of equipment and with rear-wheel drive it's a hell of a lot of fun. There are far too few test reports from cars with their basic equipment. So here you go.

In the US, Tesla is currently in the process of testing their market power and imposing their proprietary plug on everyone else. Overall, however, it is much more complicated than it looks. Above all, many still do not understand the difference between a standard and a de facto standard.
When Tesla introduced the plug 15 years ago, it was the only plug on the market suitable for long-distance electric cars. To understand how Tesla got their plug, you have to look a bit into the past.

Since I work full-time in the charging infrastructure industry myself, I would like to show you where Tesla's NACS came from and why it is unfortunately no longer up to date. I also want to address why there will be no benefit to the consumer from a switch to NACS.
Because the plug does not solve the actual problem with the US charging infrastructure. No matter whether CCS, NACS or a completely different plug will become the US standard...

What actually happens in an electric car? Do they have an alternator? And what is a BMS?

In smart's configurator for the #1 there are nice pictures of the HV system of the smart #1 and in the smart EMOTION forum we are already discussing what it looks like under the #1's bodywork. In this article I would like to show you how an electric car works and what is behind all these important-sounding terms from the introduction.

Eigentlich ist es etwas gutes, dass Ionity zukünftig auch auf die zuverlässigen Hypercharger von #Alpitronic setzt.

Aber unsere Abhängigkeit von einem einzigen Anbieter für zuverlässige Ladeinfrastruktur geht weiter und das ist ein Problem...

If you want all-wheel drive but don't want to buy a BRABUS #1, you can now order the smart #1 pulse for €46,490.

Positioned between the Premium and the BRABUS, the pulse seems to be better equipped here than in China. So let's dive right in to it.

Dieter Zetsche, former Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, is now also driving a smart #1.

As the smart Germany CEO proudly announces today, he was honoured to hand over this smart #1 to Mr. Zetsche today. Because even at Mercedes, they know who builds the best all-electric compact SUV.

Purely visually and in terms of appearance, the NACS plug in the USA is the most beautiful and the most compact. That is without question.

Unfortunately, it's about more than just looks. Especially since this AC/DC combination also existed in Europe. Here Tesla charged AC and DC with the Type 2 plug. It was part of the Type 2 standard at the time and looked like a good idea. Which it also was in its time.