Refreshed Smart #1 rides on 800V and charges in 12 minutes

Smart used to mean one thing: a plastic-bodied, two-seat egg that you could park facing the curb just to prove a point. Those funky little city buggies were special in a weird, urban-chaos sort of way. Fast forward to today, and the union between Mercedes-Benz styling and Geely hardware has completely rewritten that playbook. The Smart #1 crossover arrived a couple of years back to show us the new bold direction, but in China's fast-moving EV market, resting for eighteen months puts you at risk of becoming obsolete.

That is exactly why Smart overhauled the #1 with a mid-cycle refresh that bins its old, sluggish 400V setup in favor of full 800V silicon carbide architecture. In a market where buyers treat charging times like track lap records, the original car's half-hour wait to juice up was becoming an anchor around its neck. Geely stepped in and stuffed its high-efficiency 16-in-1 integrated electric drive into the fresh #1. This slick piece of engineering cuts high-voltage wiring by 30% and keeps the motor assembly height under 12.8 inches.

The payoff for drivers is immediate, visceral, and - actually - impressive. With a single rear motor sending 245 kW (329 hp) and 236 lb-ft of torque straight to the back wheels, there is plenty of pull when you need it. Sprinting from zero to 62 mph in 6.7 seconds won't necessarily make you tear up, but having all those ponies going wild through a rear-wheel-drive chassis gives this little crossover a surprisingly playful streak.

But the real party trick is the new 61.52 kWh LFP battery paired with 6C ultra-fast charging capability. Plug into a high-output DC station, and you can blast from 10% to 80% charge in about 12 minutes - less time than it takes to watch a half-decent video on YouTube.

In terms of road footprint, the updated Smart #1 keeps the original dimensions - 168.1 inches in length, 71.7 inches in width, 64.4 inches in height, with a 108.3 inches wheelbase. Those proportions put it right in the crosshairs of premium compact rivals like the electric Mini Aceman and its own platform sibling, the Zeekr X. The Aceman plays the retro-gokart card with a tighter cabin, but the Smart offers legitimate rear legroom and flexible cargo capacity ranging from 11.1 ft³ to 34.5 ft³ with the back seats dropped.

Step inside, and it becomes immediately clear that Mercedes handled the aesthetics while Geely took care of the digital brainpower. The range-topping Ultra trim comes with a distinctive roof-mounted LiDAR bump, part of a massive 31-sensor array feeding into an Nvidia Orin Y chip with 200 TOPS of computing muscle.

Operating on the Geely-developed G-ASD H5 software, the system handles mapless navigation on both congested city streets and open highways. If you opt for the entry Max trim, you can still tick the box for the high-end driver assistance package as an option - though in typical market fashion, limited-time half-price promos are being dangled to lure buyers into the tech-heavy fold.

The cabin itself is dominated by a crisp 15.4-inch 2.5K central touchscreen running Flyme Auto software (heavily customized Smart OS powered by a 4nm Dragon Eagle 6P chip). Between the 10.2-inch digital driver display, a 10-inch adaptive head-up display, 24 different seat configuration modes, and a 13-speaker Sennheiser surround sound system pumping out 640W, the interior feels like a cozy lounge for tech enthusiasts. It is an interesting mix of German minimalism and Chinese tech flair that makes older European compacts look like analog relics.

The price tag for all this high-tech gadgetry reveals how cutthroat the Chinese EV market really is right now. Official guidance puts the Smart #1 535 Max at RMB 152,900 (around $22,500) and the flagship 535 Ultra at RMB 172,900 (about $25,300). As usual, limited-time launch discounts knock the entry price down to RMB 149,900 ($22,080) or RMB 169,900 respectively, alongside the usual sweeteners like a RMB 3,000 deposit deduction, half-price options on 19-inch wheels, and an RMB 10,000 trade-in bonus for existing Smart owners.

We are witnessing here a complete re-invention of what a small urban car can be. The refreshed Smart #1 proves that the brand has outgrown its novelty-car origins (though the original Smart ForTwo is coming back), evolving into a fast-charging, hyper-intelligent urban weapon. Marrying sleek Mercedes design lines with Geely's best EV hardware has turned a former city-car oddity into one of the most compelling compact packages on the market today.

Via