At the Smart top
Auto China is the stage on which Smart will lift the Concept #5 later this week. The Smart Concept #5 is a study model with typical conceptual trinkets, but is also a fairly concrete preview of a brand new model. That Smart #5 will even arrive this year.
The Smart #1 and #3 will be joined this year by a new model: the Smart #5. The Smart #5 seems to be – at least for the time being – the largest member of the Smart family. Smart itself describes it as a ‘premium mid-sized SUV’. Smart is still keeping the production version under wraps, but with this Concept #5 it gives a decent indication of it.
Smart describes the Concept #5 – and therefore indirectly the #5 – as one premium mid-size SUV. It is clearly larger than the #1 and, unlike the #3 positioned above it, does not have a relatively steeply sloping roofline. The Smart Concept #5 has four-wheel drive, has off-road tires and… has 800v hardware on board. This means that you have to be able to load it very quickly. According to Smart, the 100 kWh battery pack – which offers a range of more than 550 kilometers – can be pumped from 10 to 80 percent of its capacity with electricity in just 15 minutes.
The Smart Concept #5 is still richly endowed with conceptual extras. For example, we see a light bar on the roof, a folding step at the rear so that you can access the items on the roof and even an integrated winch. Don’t expect such decoration on the production version. The interior of the Smart Concept #5 is filled with screens. We count at least three inside. According to Smart, everything runs on AMD V2000 chips and that sounds like a good idea autojournaille perhaps more interesting than it actually is.
Smart speaks, among other things, of an optically floating passenger seat with ‘new airbag solutions’. What exactly we should expect from this remains unclear. The Concept #5 would also make extensive use of artificial intelligence (AI). In the second half of this year, Smart will present the final version of the #5.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl