Smart ED Basics

You've got to understand the basics of anything before you can use it.  As an engineer, I sometimes think that I know it all before I get started and this is often due to the fact that I have some experience with mechanical or electrical devices.

The Electric Vehicle (EV) certainly looks like a car, but it doesn't exactly act like one.  This post will cover the basics of what you will want to know about an electric car and in this case the Smart ED.  Hopefully, you have at least had the chance to drive a vehicle that uses an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), as some of the information in this post will depend on that prior knowledge.

Getting Started

It's important to note where all the controls are on the vehicle.  Like an ICE vehicle an EV will have a steering wheel, shift controller, accelerator, and brake pedals. The display panels are similar except for two extra gauges on top of the dash.  These two gauges are for fuel and its use.

The gauge on the left shows how much fuel (charge) remains.  The gauge on the right shows the rate at which the fuel is being used. But there is something special about electric vehicles that cannot be done with ICE vehicles.  When braking, the electric motor can be used  to re-capture some of the lost energy. It's like putting fuel back in the tank.

Fuel 

The fuel for the Smart ED is electrical charge.  If you've used a smartphone then you're already somewhat familiar with the electric car and its energy source. The Smart ED uses electricity just like so many electronic devices that we use in our lives every day.

Unlike ICE vehicles, each EV must be equipped with the proper charger in order to refuel the battery (with electricity).  Depending on the capacity of the battery and the charger will determine how long it takes.

The Smart ED has a 17.6 kWh battery and an on-board charger rated at 3.3 kW, so at that fastest it will completely recharge in about 5 hours.

Shift Controller

Electric vehicles do not have the same sort of transmission that you might find in either a manual or automatic ICE vehicle.  In an automatic ICE vehicle you may find more than just the Park, Neutral, Reverse, and Drive.  But because an ICE vehicle has only a narrow band of speeds that are useful, a transmission is used to allow the engine to operate more efficiently at higher and lower speeds.

The EV does not have "gears" per se, but it does at least have Park, Neutral, Reverse, and Drive.  ICE engines usually only spin in one direction so when you need to go in reverse, a gear is inserted to change the direction that the engine spins the wheels.  But when you want an EV to run in reverse, you need only spin it in reverse.

Acceleration

Many of us are quite familiar with labeling the pedal on the right, as the "gas" pedal.  But no gas used to propel an electric car, the more generic term is the "accelerator" pedal. Most electric motors do not require a transmission to change the gearing ration between the motor and the wheels in order to find the optimum performance, the way an ICE does. Electric motors can spin up to much faster than ICE without overheating.

As electric motors do not have to use a transmission to accelerate, there is no need to think about changing gears.  The motor starts and continues on spinning up with greater speeds. Internal combustion engines have a particular range of speeds that are the most efficient and use the transmission to acquire that speed.

The Smart ED has an electric motor capable of about 50 hp, but nearly 100 ft-lbs of torque.  If you floor the accelerator, there's an additional bit of room at the very bottom know as the "kick down".  When you hit the kick down, you will feel a significant increase in the power, like having a nitro pack built-in

Braking

Electric cars are unique when it comes to slowing or stopping.  Although it is possible to use an internal combustion engine to slow the vehicle (called engine braking), the same action when used in an electric car can will generate electricity.  Most electric vehicles are equipped with the ability to increase or decrease the amount of resistance that the motor implements when using it to stop the vehicle.   The greater the resistance, the more energy is generated, and in turn the more quickly the vehicle slows.

Using the regenerative ability of an electric motor to recharge the battery every time that you need to stop, not only increases the longevity of your brakes, but improves the range of the vehicle.

Range

If there's one thing that I've come to see in a completely different way, it's range. Drivers of ICE vehicles take some solace in knowing that with a full tank of gas, range is not a problem.  This is only a recent notion, as before 1950 gas stations were not nearly as common as they are today. Electric vehicle drivers can take solace in knowing that they can recharge nearly anywhere, as the electric infrastructure of modern society has placed hundreds of millions of electrical sockets in nearly every building.

Ah, but what of the range of the electric vehicle?  ICE vehicle drivers are familiar with the necessity of finding a gas station, every so often.  EV owners are familiar with refueling every day.  The closest analog to the daily recharge is the use of a Smartphone. Most people charge the smartphone every day so that it can be used all day.  The same goes for an electric car.

The statistics say that 50% of all modern citizens drive no more than 30 miles in a day and that 80% drive no more than 50 miles in a day.  Most electric cars can easily cover 50 miles of daily driving.

The Smart ED comes with an EPA-noted range of 63 miles per full charge, at the least 58 miles, but some people have been able to get as many as 90 miles.

Conclusion

There's a whole new world of electric vehicles just waiting to be explored and utilized.  Electric vehicles are fun and useful (but mostly fun).   They're not so different from internal combustion engine vehicles, at least externally.  But once you get used to charging your car like you do your smartphone (every day), it won't take long to forget about the prior need to go to a gas station.

You won't feel bad that, although your range in a day may be limited to between 60 and 100 miles, you're spending less than half as much money on fuel as you might have in a Prius.  If you charge at a public charging station, it is actually possible to never pay for fuel.  Do you know of a gas station that gives fuel away for free?

Lastly, I have yet to get bored with the fun of 100% torque, 100% of the time.  Acceleration in an EV is almost too fun and almost unnervingly quiet.  Unless you love the roar of an internal combustion engine, you may be pleasantly surprised by the silent rocket that is the Smart ED.  It might be small, but it's got plenty of power.