New user here
Hi all. Just leased a brand new Smart #1 Premium edition. Never had an electric before, in face never owned anything with automatic transmission before so this is an adventure for me. Only occasionally do I find myself reaching for a gearstick though, so it must be quite easy and intuitive. I'm loving the speed and comfort, the practicality and cool sound system. I'm not loving the bizarre cluttered UI and tons of nonsense warnings that plague all modern cars with their safety systems. Anyway, it's an adventure so we'll see how it goes.
I loved it when I first got mine. I've never driven an EV before and it feels fast from the first touch of the pedal. Build quality feels good too, friends were impressed with it. It also took a minute to get used to the near one pedal driving when you put the regen up high.
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Dorset Steve
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2023 10:54 am
Hi,
Congrats on the new car! I hope the positives outweigh the niggles for you.
I am now into my seventh year of driving an EV as my main, daily drive and would not go back to ICE. When I tested the #1 (Premium), there were a few irritation I noticed, the main one doesn't get alot of attention; the braking/regen... With lowest regen setting/no 1-pedal driving, there was a noticeable 'lag' between taking your foot off the accelerator /applying the brake when the car 'free-wheeled' for a moment before regen or braking started. This made it impossibe to drive smoothly - there was constant over/under correction between accelerator and brake.
Do you notice any of this?
I also found the 'driver attention' annoying, but while I had the car there was an update, which I downloaded and applied. Afterwards the car was noticeably less annoying! I also found the traffic sign recognition poorer than my latest 2 EVs.
Enjoy!
Congrats on the new car! I hope the positives outweigh the niggles for you.
I am now into my seventh year of driving an EV as my main, daily drive and would not go back to ICE. When I tested the #1 (Premium), there were a few irritation I noticed, the main one doesn't get alot of attention; the braking/regen... With lowest regen setting/no 1-pedal driving, there was a noticeable 'lag' between taking your foot off the accelerator /applying the brake when the car 'free-wheeled' for a moment before regen or braking started. This made it impossibe to drive smoothly - there was constant over/under correction between accelerator and brake.
Do you notice any of this?
I also found the 'driver attention' annoying, but while I had the car there was an update, which I downloaded and applied. Afterwards the car was noticeably less annoying! I also found the traffic sign recognition poorer than my latest 2 EVs.
Enjoy!
Traffic recognition algorithm needs a bit of fine tuning, on my way home yesterday it did seem to pick up some not on my route home and ignored others actually on my route, similar to my Honda e I had. It'd be nice if they gave you an option to weight the speed limit from sign based to satnav based.
Obviously I haven't driven it much only picking it up yesterday but didn't seem to get any driver attention nags (yet)
As for the regen once I get used to it I guess it'll become second nature to anticipate its behaviour (rather than expect every car to perform exactly the same way) I guess if smart get enough enquiries/complaints about it, that it'd be easy to update the software control.
Obviously I haven't driven it much only picking it up yesterday but didn't seem to get any driver attention nags (yet)
As for the regen once I get used to it I guess it'll become second nature to anticipate its behaviour (rather than expect every car to perform exactly the same way) I guess if smart get enough enquiries/complaints about it, that it'd be easy to update the software control.
I've never had an electric and have 1 weeks experience of driving an automatic before. I was surprised how quickly I got used to the regen and almost one pedal driving. I turned regen to full and have been learning how to anticipate that. There's a delay before it kicks in so you have to get used to it to get any smooth driving. I've been unable to find the E-pedal setting anywhere to turn that on since it should activate the brake lights and prevent someone from ramming me from behind in the dark winter mornings. I just saw a review that hints at the E-pedal setting only being available on the lower regen setting so I'm going to look for that tomorrow.
