Alex Goy has a frustrating experience in the Smart #5 Brabus
A week with the Smart #5 Brabus has taught me an important thing — some new cars think the people driving them are stupid, and the only way to make them less stupid is to throw a ton of tech at them. It’s tech that doesn’t really work, which is a bit of a shame, really, as it’s a decent way to get around when you’re not shouting at it. There’s also the matter of its somewhat irritating name that’ll make people do funny faces when you mention it.
No longer pocket sized
Smart has changed. It doesn’t make pocket-sized city cars any more, instead now choosing to go down the EV (and PHEV) route. The #1 is a smallish family hatch, the #3 is a small SUV, and the #5 is a bigger SUV. There’s a Smart for you, no matter which stage of family life you’re at. They’re all quite funky to look at, bringing a bit of the ‘fun’ that made the original Smart line up so charming, and making some of the more serious offerings look a little, well…serious.
Exterior
The #5 is tall, long, and doesn’t appear to have a single sharp line on it. Everything is curved and rounded off so as not to poke anyone in the eye or offend any sensibilities. In black, the whole thing becomes a sort of amorphous blob, which makes it rather unremarkable, although a brighter hue will show off its glorious curves far better.
Interior
Inside, you won’t find many sharp edges either. It’s all rounded off and made friendly to the eye and touch. In the Brabus-spec car I had, everything in there was moody, which’ll suit some people, but it didn’t hide some really odd equipment choices. As with every car these days, there’s a 10.3-inch digital cluster, a chunky 13-inch infotainment screen, and a 13-inch screen for the passenger to stream music/watch movies/do things on. It’s an EV, which means we’re in the ‘screens on all the things’ era, but does a passenger really need that sorta thing? It seems like a screen for a screen’s sake, or maybe a way to sell to people who can’t engage family and friends in conversation for more than 20 minutes? Its needlessness set a strange theme for the car.
Totting up the screen time
As with most EVs these days, you can do everything via the central screen. You can adjust seat positions and heating/cooling through there, which you can also do with physical buttons on the doors, which makes one or the other redundant. Same for the roof blind - the screen will open it, as will a giant knob on the roof. If you want to mess with the air temperature, to the screen you go. Radio, music, CarPlay, charge flap opening, boot opening, frunk opening, all through the screen. There’s a voice assistant you can get to do things for you as well. Going from CarPlay to a native setting is easy enough, but leaping back to your phone, then Google Maps, etc, is the work of many prods.
The screen is where you go for various car settings as well. Unless you set a programmable button on ‘wheel up to one of many things, you’ll have to dig through the screens to adjust things brake regen ferocity, which is rather annoying. Drive mode select (Eco, Comfort, Sport, Off Road, Brabus, etc, etc) is done via a set button on the dark mirror, but when you prod it you’re fired to the next in the row off the bat, which can be a little surprising if you’re in Comfort, are aiming for Eco, and end up being pelted along the road in Sport for a moment while you hurriedly cycle through. Screens, as ever, are frustrating and make the user experience worse.
Its quirky design is fun enough, but it hides more annoyances. To get out of the front doors, there’s no traditional handle, but a big round button embedded in a slab of plastic at the end of the armrest in the door. It may be my tiny hands, but it’s a pain to grip, and terribly unnatural. What’s wrong with a handle?
Driving experience
At least its drive is decent. The Brabus Smart #5 comes with a 100kWh battery that fires 646bhp and 523lb ft to all four wheels. Accelerating from 0-62mph takes 3.8 seconds, and it’ll top out at 130mph. Its official range is 335 miles, and it’ll get from 10 to 80 per cent capacity in 18 minutes if you find a 400kW charger.
On the motorway, it’s quiet, composed, and calm, while in town, despite being quite big, it’s easy to thread through traffic. The EV powertrain, in Comfort and Eco modes, doesn’t want to tear your face off and will gently glide you around. The steering’s not too heavy either. Lob kids and shopping in the back, and you’ve got yourself a sensible family wagon. Find yourself in Sport or the mega powerful Brabus mode, and it’s VERY quick. I found myself giving it more stick than I expected on a country lane and… really enjoying it. Big it may be, but it’s a giggle. Even on greasy December roads, it grips well, even with a manchild behind the wheel. The ride is a little jiggly at times, but so are the UK’s manky roads.
The frustrating part
It’s an enjoyable enough thing until it starts barking at you or trying to do things for you. Its active safety systems are intrusive and drive you mad. If it thinks you’re too close to something, it’ll beep, which is fine in a car park, less so in London traffic. London is mostly traffic these days, so it got a bit noisy in there from time to time, which caused rage. Its lane keep assist thing is a pain, as is its fatigue warning, which thinks that if you look at the big screen to do anything, you’re about to pass out and have a crash. Drift over the speed limit and expect loud bongs, too. Most irksome was a function designed to make life easy - the cruise control. Set it at a desired speed, and it’ll keep you in your lane, which is wonderful! If you indicate out and go to change lanes, it’ll guide you over just fine, but dare to cancel the indicator a touch too early and you’ll be shouted at. Or, if there’s a car in the lane you’re about to move into a little too close for the car’s comfort, it’ll slam the anchors on. Alarming to say the least.
Efficiency
Also alarming is the average efficiency. Over a week of mixed driving, I managed an average of 1.87 miles per kWh. Sure, the temperature is a bit low, but that’s not very good at all. The most I got on a single drive was 2.02 mi/kWh, which would get a max range of a little over 200 miles on a charge.
Concluding thoughts
Intrusive active safety tech isn’t new. Neither is less than stellar EV efficiency in the winter. But couple them with a car reliant on touch screen proddery and odd design quirks that make the experience actively difficult, and you end up with something hard to recommend. To drive it’s decent, to live with it’s frustrating. It thinks you’re stupid, and in the process does stupid things. It’s been a while since I’ve been actively angry with a car, but the Smart… ain’t Smart.
words: Alex Goy
pictures: Smart
