SMART MULLS ELECTRIC FORTWO REPLACEMENT BUT WON’T MAKE IT ALONE
The Fortwo is being discontinued this year, but Smart is looking at ways to make a new generation happen.
Smart became synonymous with tiny but well-engineered city cars, and its most iconic model is what became known as the ForTwo. Three generations and 26 years of continuous production since the ForTwo’s debut in 1998, and Smart pulled the plug on the model in 2024, but it is looking to eventually launch a replacement.
Smart changed its focus after it became a 50/50 joint venture between its original owner, Mercedes-Benz, and China’s Geely in 2019. Now the goal is to take the brand upmarket and make larger and more expensive models like the #1, #3 and #5 electric crossovers, and there doesn’t seem to be as big a business case for tiny city two-seaters like the Fortwo.
However, there is a reason why Smart is skipping the #2 name for now: it will be used in a future revival of the Fortwo (pictured). Autocar talked to Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann, who revealed the company’s intention to bring back the pint-sized two-seater but stopped short of confirming its arrival.
Adelmann said, “We are working on that one. The run-out of the current Fortwo was two months ago, now. It would have been great to have a direct successor - we don't, but we're working on it.” He went on to explain that Smart doesn’t believe there’s enough demand to justify the company investing in a platform that it would only use for this one model.
This kind of vehicle would only really be popular in Europe, but even if it’s a relatively big market, it still wouldn’t generate enough demand for Smart to do it alone. He noted that “the best year for Fortwo was around 100,000 units, and that's not enough to justify a platform,” concluding that “if you share this platform with partners—we're still in evaluation—then you can also share the investment costs and the production site etcetera, and it starts making sense. We want to have a positive business case for us, for our retailers and in the end for our customers."
All new models revealed under Geely’s part-ownership have been built atop the Chinese company’s SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) platform, which has multiple variants and is used in Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr and even Lotus EVs like the new Emeya that we recently drove. The latter employs the most feature-packed version of the platform, which is called Electric Premium Architecture (EPA), but it’s also known as SEA-P (where the P stands for Premium).
Geely doesn’t have a version of the SEA platform that would be a suitable fit for a Smart Fortwo-sized vehicle, so it’s looking for a partner to supply one. To stay true to the spirit of the original Fortwo, the new one would have to be rear-wheel drive, but there are currently no rear-wheel drive EV platforms for vehicles this small.
Launching a Fortwo successor isn’t a priority for Smart right now, as it is looking to bolster its lineup with crossovers that are much bigger and more expensive than any previous vehicle to wear the Smart badge. The manufacturer uses odd numbers for crossovers, while even numbers are reserved for coupe-like crossovers and other non-crossover models like the city car.