Gas powered Smart cars will no longer be sold in the United States and Canada after 2017, according to a letter written by Mercedes Benz CEO Dietmar Exler to car dealerships across the United States. In April, Daimler Chrysler, the parent company of Smart will stop production of gas powered Smart cars and only continue sales until they are sold out.
The sales of Smart cars have been erratic since their development in 2008. They sold 24,622 cars in 2008 but only 5,927 in 2010. They have also seen a steady decline in sales since 2014. Smart only sold 6,211 cars in 2016 compared to the 10,453 sold in 2014 according to CarSalesBase.
“Developments within the micro-car segment present some challenges for the current Smart product portfolio,” wrote Mercedes Benz CEO Dietmar Exler. Mercedes Benz owns Daimler Chrysler, the parent company of Smart. “As a result, Smart will discontinue sales of the gasoline powered Smart Fortwo and Fortwo Cabrio for the US and Canadian Markets after model year 2017.”
Smart has 85 dealers in the United States according to Automotive News. In 2014, Smart had 93 dealers and it may continue to decrease with the discontinuation of gas powered cars.
When Smart car sales peaked in 2014, 25 percent of those sold were completely electric. The new 2017 version of the Smart Fortwo Electric Drive has an 80 horsepower electric motor and can travel up to 90 miles on one charge; mainly ideal for city dwellers. It costs upwards of $28,000 and takes a little more than three hours to complete a full charge of the Fortwo Electric Drive.
The idea of completely electric cars is still debated in the United States. According to a report in the Scientific American, completely electric cars counted for 1 percent of new car sales in June of 2016. The sale of completely electric cars in the United States is increasing, but at an extremely slow rate compared to the sale of gas powered cars.
Gas prices were at a historic low in early 2016, but have increased in recent months. The sale of electric cars tend to follow the trends of gas prices and Smart’s recent decision to sell only electric cars could potentially pay off.
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