Mr. Incredible;712917; said:
Not so fast, that car gets 40-50 MPG.
You won't save enough money to make it worthwhile. A Civic DX is $10k cheaper ($14k base), gets 30/40mpg city/highway, has more room and will do better in a crash. I can make the same arguments for the Honda Fit, Nissan Versa, Nissan Sentra, Mitsubishi Lancer (base model) and at least a dozen other cars in the U.S. market.
Let's argue that it gets 10 more mpg in city driving than the Civic, and all you do is drive in the city. Let's say that you drive roughly 12,000 miles per year. The Civic will burn 400 gallons of gas, and the Smart will burn 300, thus saving you 100 gallons of gas. Good...right? Well, even at $3.00/gallon, that's a mere $300 a year. Now let's say you own the car for 5 years. You've saved $1500 over owning a Civic, and you have a smaller, slower and much more expensive car ($10k MORE).
It's a fashion statement for people who want the world to think that they're environmentally conscious. It's a hustle. Make the thing half the price, and then you're at least talking about something that makes financial sense.
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