Firstly, a warm welcome to the new kid on New Zealand’s proverbial automotive block. While smart may be a new brand to us in Kiwi land, its nameplate is almost 30 years old. Barring a brief tryst with the smart ForTwo some years ago, the brand is relatively unknown to us and certainly even more unfamiliar in its current guise.
Therefore at smart’s local launch, the precedent was to establish the brand in New Zealand’s small but busy automotive landscape. One of the key takeaways being that smart is “not just another EV brand” as NZ GM, Arek Zywot put it. Instead, it bucks the trend by blending Western design with Eastern technology through funky styling and seemingly endless customizability. Two models are currently offered in our country, the #1 small SUV and the #3 medium-sized SUV.
With the latter on test first, my week with the car had me trying to liken it to the fashion world because of the way it blends motoring with the experience of a style accessory. With that came the concept of ‘urban chic’, a style that is modern in nature but makes use of tried and tested elements to create something that stands out.
While the little #1 is more angular in nature, the larger #3 employs a flowing design, with an almost bubble like roof sitting atop a rounded body. Several customization options are available through choices of body colours, roof colours and interior themes, amounting to around 50 different combinations across the range! However, my review model was rather timelessly specified. A white body against a black roof added a premium look to the #3, it is of course the brand’s flagship in New Zealand for the moment. Given that this was the Premium model as well, the choice of colours seemed rather fitting!
Couple the colour choice with that of the wheels and you have a ‘baby Maybach’ if you will, a likeness strengthened by the fact that Mercedes-Benz designed the car both inside and out. However, while honouring its designer, smart also wants to establish itself as can be seen through the branding around the car. There is some rather pronounced smart badging to put those curious minds at east while a few hidden Easter eggs also exist for those wanting a close encounter.
However, on closer inspection, the #3 certainly appears larger than it does from a distance. It is one of those cars that hides its dimensions well, the curved roof is to be thanked for this. Measuring in at 4.4m long, with a width of 1.84m and a height of 1.55m, it is easy to see how the interior may not be quite so spacious. smart have counteracted this by pushing the wheels out to all four corners of the car and with the battery sitting low, space is now aplenty on the inside.
It isn’t just space that is aplenty on the interior with technology certainly in abundance as well. As you can see from the above photos, the vast strips of LED ambient lighting ensure that cabin has quite a different feel depending on the time of day. What you can’t see from the above photos is a massive panoramic glass roof that floods the cabin with light, although its windows are decently sized anyway. The glass roof does have an excellent UV protection rating of 90% plus, it might sound like overkill but is much needed in this country. Though the heat does become a bit much when you’ve left the car outside on a sunny day and the seats have become scalding so it would have been nice to have the option of shutting it out with a blind.
Something that you can’t shut out is your interaction with technology as the #3 does have a few shortcut touch capacitive buttons under the screen but apart from this, you have to go through the large touchscreen for everything else. A rather busy home screen and extensive driver safety suite almost automatically limit the smart’s appeal to a younger demographic which is who they are targeting anyway!
Hopefully smart’s youthful appeal was already apparent but I’ll go ahead and clarify this for you. Things like the lower case brand name make smart more approachable, using ‘#’ for its nomenclature keeps it trendy whilst also incorporating extras like a Beats audio system and a Cheetah-esque AI assistant. After all, it is a brand that is different and there’s no getting around that so the best thing they can do is own it!
While there’s three different trim levels available for New Zealand, the #3 Brabus is the only dual motor variant and is mighty quick as a result of this. The Premium on the other hand, is not a sporty vehicle in the same vein. However, it still extracts a respectable 200kW of power and 343Nm of torque from its 66kWhr battery. It claims to do the 0-100kph sprint in 5.8s and achieve an efficiency figure of 16.3kWhr/100km. While I cannot attest to the former figure, the latter returned an incredible 14.8kWhr/100km number during my week with the car. Given that I spent most of my time in either ‘Comfort’ or ‘Eco’, the figure is still an impressive one.
While I do enjoy a sporty drive, the #3 Premium doesn’t prompt you to push it to the limit. It’s far more comfortable wafting along a motorway or navigating the city centre than it is tackling a twisty back road. Be warned though because the safety systems are intrusive, the speed warning beeps at you from 2kph over and I found the lane keep assist to also be overzealous at times just like the forward collision warning which dabs the brakes if it thinks you are going to have a forward crash. The automatic steering weight setting doesn’t play well to mid-corner confidence either so I recommend that you find your ideal steering setting and stick with it! Those are all of my criticisms of the #3 Premium as a sporty car but then again it isn’t one, instead it does well as a cruising vehicle for your city’s high street.
The Verdict
Back to the definition of ‘urban chic’. As said in the intro, it denotes a style that is modern in nature but makes use of tried and tested elements to create something that stands out. While not a fashion expert myself, this is the parallel that I drew when trying to liken my experience with the smart #3 to that world. It looks distinctive while making use of more traditional colour schemes and materials, certainly attracting plenty of eyeballs during my time with the car.
2025 smart #3 Premium: 3.5/5
Thanks for reading! For more smart news and reviews, visit Tarmac Life.
smart #3 Premium courtesy of smart New Zealand, thanks Arek and Sam!
Words and pictures by Matthew D’Souza.
