The U.S. sales history of the Smart two-seat minicar started with a bang in 2008, when gasoline prices soared, and has waned since then. A complete redesign of the little ForTwo in the 2016 model year, with the Cabrio soft-top following for 2017, didn't do much for sales. That led parent company Daimler to make a radical decision: For the 2018... Smart to go all-electric worldwide by 2020: Daimler CEO
The U.S. sales history of the Smart two-seat minicar started with a bang in 2008, when gasoline prices soared, and has waned since then. A complete redesign of the little ForTwo in the 2016 model year, with the Cabrio soft-top following for 2017, didn't do much for sales. That led parent company Daimler to make a radical decision: For the 2018... 
Think back, if you can, to early 2008. In the real world, that's just 10 years ago, but in electric-car time, it's several millennia. The Tesla Roadster had been announced, but hadn't yet struggled into production. The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were still deep in development, and the plan for a Tesla Model S hadn't been announced beyond a vague... 
When the Fiat 500e electric minicar launched in 2013, its range was rated at 87 miles, but its most distinctive feature was its wickedly fun-to-drive character. Six years later, the fun driving remains the same—and the range has fallen slightly to 84 miles, based on changes to EPA test calculations. Meanwhile, every other electric model from... 
Birthed from the uncommon alliance between watch company Swatch and Mercedes-Benz, Smart's goal was to bring a stylish city car to the masses with a level of personalization not seen in other models. The first Fortwo rolled off the line at Smartville (in Hambach, France) almost 20 years ago, but it took another nine years for the little cars to... 
I try very hard to go into each review with an open mind, but in the case of the 2018 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive Cabriolet, I was prepared to dislike it. I expected an anemic driving experience in a vehicle that was somehow both small and cumbersome. I thought the Smart would be an automotive nerd, a vehicle too compromised to work on American... 
When we published an article on one owner's experience using his Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car to compete in a local autocross, it contained a comment that riled up our reader Doug Kerr. That comment—"Outside of one high-performance electric vehicle, casual electric cars are hardly the racer’s choice"—prompted Kerr to take the... ![2016 Mitsubishi i-MiEV Quick Drive - Portland OR - July 2015 [photo: Doug Berger]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/2016-mitsubishi-i-miev_100521475_t.gif)
The Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car deserves a place in history. It was arguably the first mass-produced modern electric car put on sale, well before the Nissan Leaf arrived in December 2010. Pre-production i-MiEVs were operating in test fleets in Japan as early as 2007, and it was on sale in that country even as Tesla struggled to get its Roadster... 
The first Mini E, cobbled together by putting a battery pack where the rear seat used to be, was BMW's very first attempt at building a modern electric car. Only a few hundred were built, back in 2009, but the quick project gave the German company real-world experience on how electric-car drivers used their cars, recharged them, and otherwise... 
The redesigned 2018 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive debuted just before the recent the 2016 Paris Motor Show. It switches over to the current-generation ForTwo platform, introduced as a gasoline-powered coupe version for the 2016 model year. As with the outgoing-generation model, the 2018 ForTwo Electric Drive will be available as either a coupe or...