Some time ago, among the already frugal model line-up of fortwos they also squeezed a little concept called “smart fortwo ed”. The “ed” part didn't come from "erectile dysfunction" but from "electric drive", of course, although the car might look like a wheeled ED pill to some people. The Detroit Auto Show hosts a second iteration of the smart fortwo ed concept, which is now one step closer to full production. So the concept caught so many people's attention and praise that they decided to manufacture it in series. Like any similar decision, it can take up to three to five years from a concept to evolve into a series production vehicles, but the people at smart are moving much faster.
The company has announced that it will start manufacturing an all-electric smart fortwo powered by a lithium-ion battery system at the end of 2009. Also, almost as unusual is the news is that they are also exploring the opportunities for the United States market. Considering they managed to sell almost 30,000 vehicles in the US of A in just one year of officially being in the aforementioned market is no bad feat.
Somewhat supporting this decision are a few leasing projects staring small prototype fleets of electric driven smarts. The first started in London, England in 2007 and featured 100 electric fortwos which would have to be run for four years or 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers). The vehicles were leased to paying testers/customers, who also managed to get exempted from paying the London congestion charge if they drove the little bugger.
Similar project are about to start in Rome, Milan, Pisa in Italy and Berlin, in Germany. For Italy alone, Daimler AG partnered with Enel - Italy's largest energy supplier - to develop and set up over 400 charging stations for this project alone.
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