7 Like and Dislikes: Smart #1 and #3 Electric SUVs

Smart Australia is clearing out 2024 plate stock of their #1 and #3 electric cars, offering free on-road costs (standard vehicle registration, stamp duty, compulsory third-party (CTP) insurance and dealer delivery charges) until Feb 9th 2025 or while stocks last. This cuts several thousand dollars from the price of these EVs.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

If either of these models is on your shortlist read on to find out what I like and dislike about the Smart #1 and #3 after test driving them for several hundred kilometres.

They are interesting cars which don't look the same as all the other EV SUVs available in Australia.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

For example the body styling is rounded instead of being square and angular like many competitors.

The suspension handles Sydney potholes and speed bumps well and the vehicles corner nicely unlike many electric SUVs that kind of wobble about and feel a bit floaty and boaty.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

I really don't like how the car has a cluttered cartoonish theme to the infotainment screen and I think it will put a lot of buyers off.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

The speed warning and traffic sign recognition is also really annoying. As you can see in my video the car goes through a 50km/hr Zone and then sees a 40km/hr school zone. However this isn't relevant because it's school holidays and the lower speed limit doesn't apply.

Obviously I'm driving above 40km/hr because it's a 50km/hr zone and that's what I'm allowed to do but an annoying warning comes up saying I'm speeding even though I'm not. You can turn this feature off but you have to do it every time you start the car.

I really like the 22 KW AC top charging rate for these cars.

The smart #1 Premium and Brabus as well as it's cousin the smart #3 Premium and Brabus are all capable of charging at 22 KW AC rate.

That means that if you have access to a 3 phase 22kW AC charger you can charge twice as fast as a Tesla Model 3/Model Y or three times as fast as a BYD Dolphin or Seal. That's pretty impressive.

I really dislike having to wait 10 seconds every single time I start the car to turn on one pedal driving this is really annoying.

It should be a matter of pressing one button and instantly enabling it or remembering the setting forever. I'm told if I had setup a driver profile this setting could have been saved permanently.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

I like the rounded non-aggressive body styling and the short length of only 4.3m for #1 and 4.4m for #3 makes them really easy to street park, which is handy for people who live in the inner city like I do.

The boot has a flat floor if you use the floor cover but it unfortunately only has a standard storage capacity a bit over 300L which is not big enough to hold my shopping trolley. You can get more boot storage by sliding the back seats forward but then you sacrifice being able to carry any other passengers which kind of sucks for a car this price.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

I really like the heads up display it's quite clear and provides lots of useful information and the driver information screen is also very useful.

Both of these features are not available in the Volvo EX30 which is built on the same Geely EV platform as the smart #1 and #3 as well as Zeekr X.

Image by - Neerav Bhatt

I would prefer if all the cartoon imagery eg the globe with buildings, trees, hot air balloons etc could be removed from the main infotainment screen and driver information screen. This would make the user interface uncluttered. All I want is text and icons.

I think offering an optional "simple no graphics" mode to the screen interface would help convince more people to buy the smart #1 and #3.