Smart Brabus – First Drive -Charging Woes With Strange Reward

Smart is a car brand that started as a joint venture between Swatch and Mercedes-Benz (then Daimler-Benz), but any resemblance between the cutesy-pie Smart ForTwo, ForFour, and Roadster is purely coincidental. From the start, the brand’s identity crisis stemmed from a model designed purely for European streets laid out six centuries ago being used on freeways. Frankly, driving them on freeways next to oil tankers is terrifying.

Now a joint venture with the Chinese giant Geely, Smart has found its feet. Although sold in Australia through a Mercedes-Benz showroom, it is not in any way a Mercedes-Benz—and is all the better for it.

Our Brabus is meant to look like a caped Bond villain in a red beret but is better thought of as the discreet assassin. The Smart Brabus is tiny, has a 66kWh battery, and boasts 315kW/543Nm’s worth of AWD bum-clenching friskiness.

Try the BRABUS setting if you fancy a code-brown moment in traffic.

The Smart Brabus is a small family hatch with the equivalent of a V8 glued underneath. The 3.9-second 0–100 km/h time is nothing short of shocking. You simply don’t expect that trance-inducing blood rush from such a conservative little hatch.

It was collected a day early, and my unexpected showing at the Smart showroom caught them with their strides around their ankles.

With 23% under the floor, the first port of call was the Zetland mega-chargers. Sadly, the ChargeFox outlets were not functional. They have been a point of continuing frustration for years but are the only 350kW units within coo-ee. They are down more than they are up, which is never a good thing regardless of subject, am I right?

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ABOVE: Smart#1 Brabus

The new AmpCharge (aka AMPOL oil’s answer to an ever-decreasing need for fossilised dinosaur juice) outlets were functional, but I was sans app. I followed the painful procedure, downloaded the app, logged in with Google, and attempted to zap my ride. To quote Little Britain, “computer said nooooo.”

I stabbed at my iPhone like a demented woodpecker, but the app kept erroring with, “Charge could not start.” My Apple Pay buzzed like a love bead, but naught could be had (get an adult to explain that line to you, in public if possible).

The Smart Brabus has walk-away locking and a start system that uses the bum-on-seat method of activation. This means CarPlay and climate control were still in full swing, so I reboarded the Brabus to inspect the info screen, and lo—it was good. The app continued with the cooperative instincts of a kindergartener, but the Smart Brabus was proudly displaying that 10% of charge had been added while I was arguing with my phone.

The app was glitching, and so was my patience.

I climbed the travelator to the elegance of East Village, our own little slice of Beijing. I had a coffee, raided the Coke aisle at Coles, and returned to my Smart to find it fully amped up. A small battery has its advantages, so in this case, 150kW charging and a car with a 150kW DC max limit was oodles.

“OH JOY,” I exclaimed. No, seriously, the man next to me thought I was having a stroke.

The app still showed absolutely no interest in my sesh and no record of it ever having happened. I checked the payment methods, and nothing had shown up, so—free charge for me, I think.

My charging disaster has extracted a free charge from a non-tax-paying oil giant. I feel so guilty, I could spit (no, I don’t).

What I like so far:

Cool interior
Comfy seats
Nifty slimline driver display
Easy to navigate menus
Fabulously nippy performance
Fun drive

Not so much

Uninspiring exterior
Price
Naff fake engine sound

smart #1 urban SUV key features

Floating centre console: superior room efficiency and reduction of elements create a completely new design
Halo glass roof: seamless panoramic glass roof supporting the themes of light and space
Digital key & remote car control: enabling digital key sharing through the smart app by adding smart ID
Concealed door handles: electronic door handles with indirect lighting automatically detecting approach of users with key
Large screen for individual UI: 12.8-inch touch screen display with 1920×1080 pixels to adjust preferred car functions
Ambient light: customisable ambient light with 64 colours and 20 illumination levels to adjust the lights
Characteristic exterior lighting: featuring Matrix LED headlights, fluid indication and Y-shaped front and rear light bands
Beats high-end sound technology: premium audio system consisting of an amplifier module and 13 speakers including sub-woofer
Variable boot space: sliding rear bench allows for variable cargo space. Seats are split in 60:40 and can move forwards up to 13 cm
Extensive smart Pilot: smart Pilot including Stop & Go and highway & traffic jam assistance