2008 Smart Fortwo Passion Cabriolet With 13k Orig Miles on 2040-cars

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Recharge Wrap-up: Car2go launches in Brooklyn, Green Fleet Car of the Year Award announced

The Car2go carsharing service is starting operations in Brooklyn next month. Beginning October 25, the service will offer 400 Car2go edition Smart Fortwo vehicles for point-to-point travel. Members pay a one-time sign-up fee, and are charged by the amount of time the use the vehicle (fuel and insurance is free). Drivers can find a car using the Car2go app or website, and can return the car to any non-metered parking spot within the 36-square-mile Brooklyn Home Area. Car2go is offering free membership and 30 minutes of credit for those who sign up early with a special promotional code. Learn more in the press release below. Renault and the Eco2charge consortium are working to bring better EV charging to France. They are providing research and development aimed at turning simple charging stations into "fully fledged energy ecosystems" through a smart grid. This grid would coordinate charging, consumption and energy storage in a way that increases efficiency and decreases cost. Read more in the press release below. The Renault-Nissan Alliance could source EV batteries from suppliers other than Nissan, according to CEO Carlos Ghosn. This news comes after recent questions of whether or not Nissan would scale back battery production in the US and UK. Ghosn says, "At the moment, we continue to produce our own batteries and we are open to outside sourcing, period." He also denies any plans to shutter Nissan's battery production facility in Tennessee. One source of batteries the alliance will look to is Korea's LG Chem. Read more at Automotive News Europe. The first-ever Green Fleet Car and Truck of the Year Awards will be presented at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The presentation on November 20 will be part of the LA show's Connected Car Expo. Nominees are selected by Bobit Business Media, with finalists picked by readers of Green Fleet, Automotive Fleet, Work Truck and Business Fleet magazines. The winners will be chosen based on performance, fuel economy, emissions, safety, capacities and other similar factors. Read more in the press release below. car2go Heads To Brooklyn Brooklyn To Be First To Launch Point-To-Point Carsharing Service In New York City Area On October 25th car2go North America LLC, the fastest-growing global carsharing company, announced today that it will be launching its pioneering carsharing service in Brooklyn on October 25th, marking Brooklyn as car2go's 29th market and the very first in the New York City area.

Smart electrifying entire line-up, including all-new Forfour Electric

Electric vehicle fans who are also Smart Fortwo fans have had reason to complain these past few years. After all, Daimler thought it was fine to keep selling the older, third-gen ED while the new, fourth-gen Fortwo was still cruising the streets. This is about to end. Daimler announced today that all-electric versions of the all-new Forfour and the cabrio are on the way, making Smart the only company that will have ICE and electric versions of all of its models. Of course, Smart only has three models, so this isn't exactly the same as Mercedes-Benz or Ford offering the same gas and electric options. There's also some good news for American Smart electric fans. The new Fortwo Electric Drive (ED) is going to launch in the US ahead of its appearance in Europe. There's no reason to wonder why Daimler is pushing its electric models here. The company says that "around 25 percent" of all the Fortwos sold in the US in recent times were ED models. The electric Smarts use a battery made by the Daimler subsidiary Deutsche Accumotive and use an electric motor made in Renault's plant in France. While we know pretty much what the new Smart lineups look like - since the gas models preview the changes from the last gen. The electric ForFour and carbio models will debut at the Paris Motor Show in the fall. We've got a review of the gas-powered Fortwo here. Related Video: Under the microscope: the new smart electric drive: Zero-emission driving fun in the fourth generation The new smart electric drive makes opting into electric mobility easier than ever. Soon zero-emission driving fun can be experienced not only in the smart fortwo coupe and smart fortwo cabrio, but for the first time also in the four-seater smart forfour. In future smart will be the only car manufacturer worldwide to offer its entire model range with both combustion engines and pure battery-electric drive. The new electric smart family will be celebrating its world premiere this year at the Paris Motor Show. "smart was designed for electric drive right from start and 'living electric' is our motto as an electric car pioneer", says Annette Winkler, Head of smart. "The launch of the new generation smart electric drive is imminent and, needless to say, for our whole product portfolio, the fortwo, the forfour and our cabrio, which enables electric driving to be experienced particularly intensively.

New Smart Fortwo and Forfour teased in promo video

Smart is just about ready to launch the all-new generations of the Fortwo and Forfour. It might be hard to get excited for a car with such a mixed reputation, but the company has high expectations for the updated models. In a new video, Smart teases some nearly final prototypes during arctic testing in Sweden.
Both new vehicles share a rear-engine, rear-wheel drive platform with the new Renault Twingo in Europe. The models in the video look quite tiny, and that isn't an optical illusion. Both cars are reportedly smaller than their predecessors. Even the already minuscule Fortwo is supposedly about six inches shorter than the original.
Both of them are rumored to go on sale sometime later this year, and even the Smart chief engineer in the video says, "The car is ready to be launched." Unfortunately, we probably won't get both models stateside. While the new Fortwo will come to the US, the Forfour likely won't make it here. Scroll down to get an early look at the next generation versions sliding around in the snow and ice.