Electric Vehicle Society

Hi Geoff!

I have owned a 2014 Smart Electric Drive, which I purchased used, for the past 3 years. I can say that it's been a trooper and a tank. It has a liquid cooled and heated battery that has been very robust so far. I haven't noticed any degradation after more than 70,000 kms.

My comments will be a bit generalized, since you're looking at the newer generation than mine (the newer 4th gen EQ vs. my 3rd gen ED), but I'm pretty sure the drivetrain didn't change between my model and the one's you're looking at, or at least didn't change significantly. Having said that, I don't think there's anything specific to the EV drivetrain to look out for on these cars. They're pretty solid. You mentioned that you've owned a diesel one before, so you have some experience with the car as a whole.

My experience in the winter is that you'll get a reliable 50-70 kms out of it, depending on whether you're doing a lot of short trips or one trip out and back. Multiple trips kill the range because you're repeatedly heating the car up. If you're just doing one trip out, and one back, I'd say 70 kms is probably a pretty reasonable number. I used to commute about 70 kms round trip and did that through winter. I was arriving home pretty much on empty though every day. Trying for 100 kms in the winter is pushing it a bit too far without having some charging available at your destination. Getting 100 kms range is pretty easy in the warmer months if you drive easy.

Other than the loss of range, mine has been fine in the winter. Since you've owned a Smart before, I assume you're familiar with the winter driving dynamics. It's a short wheelbase, so it does feel like it's moving around a bit more on slippery roads, but the traction and stability controls are top notch. It's handled Sudbury winters remarkably well. Snow tires are a must. Otherwise, it's been great.

The preheat function on my generation of Smart ED is notoriously crappy. It is a pain to set up and doesn't really work. Look into the 4th gen EQ to see if the preheat function is better, you might be able to cruise some of the forums for answers there. I don't know if it has an app.

Best of luck!

You're welcome. That's basically our setup. A Model 3 SR+ (which has a similar range to the Soul) for the long distance trips and the Smart ED for around town stuff. Works great for us.

Yes, I leave the Smart plugged in all the time. Unfortunately it doesn't have a feature to limit the battery charge to 80% or 90% like most newer EVs do (which we do with the Tesla when not road tripping). I'm not sure if the gen 4 EQs come with a feature like that. With a short range, and the fact that we didn't pay huge amount for it in the first place by buying it used, it doesn't make sense to try and optimize the battery charge for longevity. We just use it, and charge it, and use it again, and when it gives up or degrades below a useful capacity we will retire it. Not that we're treating it like a throw away car, but it's not worth the time and effort to try to play with the charge level manually. Still, in the 3 years or more we've had it, keeping it at 100% charge a lot of the time doesn't seem to have had any impact on the battery that I can perceive. There is a buffer built into the battery from the factory, so 100% charge on the gauge isn't really 100% on the battery. Also, it's limited to 3.3 kW charging (the EQs have a slightly bigger onboard charger I think, but it's still pretty easy on the battery), so there's little to no stress on the battery when charging.

Good luck!

Congrats!

Hope you enjoy it.