Today, smart announced that it has completed the internal engineering test of its first pure electric SUV test car at China Automotive Technology and Research Center Yancheng Test Base.
The brand new smart pure electric SUV concept car is planned to make its global debut at the Munich Motor Show in September this year, and will be officially launched in 2022 and sold globally.
In March 2019, Geely and Daimler established a joint venture to promote the transformation of the smart brand globally. The joint venture is headquartered in China, with a 50% stake held by each party. Smart will become a pure electric intelligent automobile brand.
In September 2020, Geely officially announced that it will jointly establish the smart brand global joint venture with Mercedes-Benz, named “Smart Automobile Co., Ltd.”
According to the planning of Mercedes-Benz and Geely, the new generation of pure electric smart cars will be designed by Mercedes-Benz’s global design department, and Geely’s holding global R&D center will be responsible for engineering research and development. Both parties will give full play to their advantages and play a synergistic role in R&D, manufacturing, and supply chain fields.
As time goes by, the first model of smart’s blood replacement is about to be officially unveiled. Last month, smart released a sketch of its SUV concept car, which appears to be positioned as a small SUV.
Currently, there is no small SUV on the Chinese market that follows the exquisite high-end route, and the only option for users with high requirements for appearance and brand is Tesla Model 3. If smart’s new model can capture 10%-20% of Model 3’s market, it can achieve relatively good sales in this segmented field.
Of course, all of this depends on whether the appearance of the smart SUV is attractive enough and its basic parameters are powerful enough.
Finally, how much do you think this car should cost? What kind of configurations do you hope to have?
🔗Source: Official Smart Website
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.