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A Smart Car That’s Pretty Stupid

Smart cars have recently been taking hold in America. As usual, another ill-conceived idea from the “we love Europe too much for our own good” crowd has landed on our shores to much fanfare, and virtually no common sense.

To be fair to Europe, there are things that they do in the realms of public transportation that kick our butts – see rail systems. DC and New York could stand to take a cue from the Paris Metro in terms of efficiency.

But, smart cars are foolish. The smart (it’s all lower case to reinforce the idea that the car is small, in case you didn’t notice) car’s website bills it this way:

Discover a car that has been perfectly designed for your everyday life. A car that offers maximum comfort, agility, safety, ecology and driving fun. A pioneering vehicle concept that is one of the best with its low CO2 emission figures.

Time for the verbal beat-down. Take a look at this car. What part of this is perfectly designed for my everyday life? If I was Bilbo Baggins and my job was to follow the Shriners around at parades, I could see the utility, but what could I possibly do in this car beyond carry myself from one point to the other?

There’s no room for cargo, groceries, furniture, friends or children. What average American family will find this useful? The average family that likes to leave half of the family behind everywhere they go?

I like how this is billed as a car that offers “driving fun” and in the very next sentence expresses a desire to save the planet by lowering CO2 emissions. Here’s an idea morons – those two things are incompatible. If you want to save the environment, get your prissy ass on a bicycle and pull a wagon behind you, don’t drive a car at all – ironically, this idea would probably afford you more cargo space. Don’t talk to me about how you want to save the environment and drive your car – pick one.

Comically, the hoopla over saving the environment is ridiculous since this would actually require at least two cars to transport the same number of people from one place to another. So Joe American will have to pack his wife and two kids into two cars that get 31mpg rather than one big car that get’s 20mpg. So, if he goes 30 miles, his two “smart” (an environmentally friendly) cars will use a tiny bit less than two gallons, while the gas guzzling SUV will use one and a half gallons – so the SUV actually just saved you gas.

Here’s another fun fact about smart cars – they get worse gas mileage than the Toyota Prius despite weighing less and having less horsepower. The Prius gets 45/48 mpg compared to smart car’s 33/41 mpg. Wow, what a deal – did I mention that you have to buy two of these things to carry the same number of people as the Prius?

The Prius also weighs more than the smart car – 1100 lbs more. That means it is generally safer in an accident. As you may remember from physics, force equals mass times acceleration. Thus, a heavier car that accelerates faster with more horsepower – as the Prius does - generates more force. This tends to have a sad face ending for the cars with less mass.

But physics aside, Prius also has better crash safety ratings. Of course, you’re not going to win any cool points driving either one of these, unless your friends are the type who sit around Starbucks reading Nick Hornby and pontificating about how anything mainstream is so banal while wallowing in male self-pity and composing poems about heartbreak – that they’ve never experienced because they’re pompous, self-centered douches. But you’ll look way less like a toolbox driving a Prius than a smart car, and you’ll actually be smarter.

Let’s be honest about what these smart cars are – they’re fashion statements for people who think the American family is a quaint anachronism, possess more patriotism toward the U.N. than the nation that created and funds it, have way more money than the average person, and entirely too much time on their hands to develop their frivolous causes.

Two thumbs down, one middle finger up.