Great video again. I'm thrilled to see there is somebody in the USA who appreciates the electric as much as I do. I've tested the kist last week as well and I'm also in love with the added regen. Even had it on the dyno, It's now doing close to 100 HP, instead of the base 75 HP. You're right. The smart got the same motor as the Fiat 500e (the SMG180 by EM-motive GmbH, a company by Bosch and Daimler). Only difference is, that the Fiat 500e got a little different gearbox as the smart. The motor is actually rated for 80kW. They limited it in the smart to 55kW (60kW Brabus) as they where concerned it could fall on it's bonnet when flooring it on a ramp. :D And, for all the nerds like me out there: The HV-plug at the motor of the smart as a little different as the one on the Fiat 500e. ;)
If fiat bought smart and built it here.. 3 cylinder turbo diesel(stator to start engine and charge batteries)with optional electric power from stator for city stop and go.. (US) Vw beetle
I've had this car since June 2014 and I FREAKN LOVE IT. I have the trailer hitch, moved entire houses, 1 ton of gravel, and outpaced jaguars, BMWs, Mercedes, all in that 0 to 40 mph range. No. I wouldn't spend $700 on this. $200 maybe. But I'm looking forward to the regen results.
@@danisantos3255 yes. I've never lost a mile and I'm at 61,000 miles. now i HAVE babied it. fast charging as little as possible and only less than 20% a hand full of times. I HEAR that long term storage below 20 % is a sure fire killer, regardless of the 12v battery condition..
David Kraft oh that’s good! The car I’m seeing has a lot of range too, the owner says more than 70 miles is achievable but I’ve heard horror stories about HV contactors and what not... since the battery isn’t rented, I’d have a 7k€ scrap car
I do really wonder if there might be a cheaper (and better) option possibly swapping the Fiat 500 motor control unit into this car (unless the battery has a different voltage).
You also have to think about the fact that people don’t buy these cars to go fast, I don’t see how there would even be a market for this device, especially being over $800
I can't see that higher regen rate would add anything to range, as it would be stooping/slowing harder, but over a shorter distance, so the total charge from decelerating between two speeds would be about the same. Maybe if you do a lot of heavy braking that would otherwise use the friction brakes, or the stock setup engages the friction brakes too early in the pedal travel, otherwise hard to see how it would help.
Electric power comes easy as long as motor and battery are strong enough, nice control, weight distribution etc for good handling is not so easy to fix if its badly designed.
@@FlyingFun. That's indeed the case that handling of many first gen and cheap electric cars in China are not so good on the suspension design, wihch should be utterly different from gas engine car due to the weight distribution. But try Nio, whose electric control module and chassis /suspension are designed by their US/German teams respectively. I can't say NIO can match Model3's sportcar-like handling, for a larger SUV, the road manner of NIO is sophistically and surprisingly good, the ride is comfortable and the interior is much better equipped than a Tesla. With a 4 seconds 0-60 time, luxury interior, and nice chassis, I think NIO es6 is a much better suv than an Audi Q5. And, for the first gen NIO buyers, they can swap battery free of charge.
@@angelgjr1999 haha, I ride a bicycle 99% of the time because it's more fun than sitting in traffic burning fuel polluting but that's another story lol, electric tric cars are only green whilst you drive them, to make them makes lots of pollution and impacts on the planet.. Tj3 lock down has shown many people that bicycles can be an effective and fun mode of transport but different story in winter of course. In uk we don't see many v8s either probably because fuel is too expensive lol.
Awesome video! Though believe it or not depending on driving habits the increased regen might actually decrease your range. If you normally stop and slow down using regen then using weaker regen your putting less power back in but over a longer period of time. By increasing the regen power your now putting in more power over a shorter period of time. But energy losses are proportional to the current squared. So if you double your regen you quadruple your charging losses. It's actually more efficient to apply light regen (or even coast) where possible. However if you commonly do hard stops and you are using the friction brakes often this upgrade might improve your efficiency a bit as strong regen is still better than wasting all that energy in the brakes.
this is my first hand experience. air resistance is the largest factor. especially temperature. yes the batteries have less capacity, but dense air is significantly noticeable at around 15%.
Nice video again! I was looking at this MOD for my Smart ED and once again you uploaded a video. This is getting spooky! Very very interested in the regen and seeing the braking performance, Are we talking one pedal driving? Please let us know your range results too🙂 Thanks again guys, keep up the good work!!
If the same motor is rated at 80+ kW in the 500e and only 55 kW in the Smart, there is a very high chance that the Smart's drivetrain is battery limited in terms of power. My guess is the smart uses a cheaper but lower peak/sustained output battery than the 500e, meaning you may be able to get a little bit more power out of the car but run the risk of frying the battery. Regardless I'm excited to see how the piggyback tune works on range, since it clearly does add a noticeable improvement in performance and power
Great video Tommy! Do you have any B-Roll showing the 0-20 and 0-40 from the Solo DL before and after the upgrade (besides the screenshot in the video)? It’d be really helpful to compare those, since that’s where you saw the gains. Also for fun compare it to some other cars? I have an i3 for example and it’s 0-60 is around 7. But the i3’s 0-30 at one point was the fastest out of their BMW line up (including M cars).
I'm sold. Makes buying tne smart EV that much more appealing. As for reliability, even if this was gas, I know from being a 120k miles so far, you have a long way from any issues.
Will be interesting to see if, in general driving, the improved regenerative braking compensates for the additional power used for the improved acceleration. For about $300, you might experiment with a 150 watt flexible solar RV panel on the roof to improve range and perhaps gain some interior shade. really enjoying this Smart car series -- brilliant 21st century car hacks.
I'm guessing it changed the accelerator module values or something similar. An ev has a performance map for differant engine, battery, inverter temperatures, throtle positions and probably a few more things i'm forgetting rn. A gen 2 prius is actually a great(if not perfect) learning ground for migrating from an ice vehicle to an ev.
I would suspect that the inverter and battery are the soft spots here. Check the thermals on those. Also like rodding a gas car eventually the drive train may break from excess torque. Rod-em and have fun!
That's a very mild upgrade but I'm betting that they intentionally made the upgrade mild to keep it from stressing the motor. I wouldn't be surprised to see a higher "tune" level in the future. Still the mild upgrade seems to be worth the price because of the 20 to 40 mph drivability improvement you mentioned.
Hey Tommy, Thanks for this video. Loved this video. Do you still have this Smart Car and have you finally finished modding/altering it? After all the mods what kind of mpge and range does it get? Do you have any issues/problems? What is the total cost of ownership over the last two years? I am considering buying a Smart Car for very short range/ local /city driving. Do you think it is worth buying or should I forget about Smart Car altogether and go with a new golf cart instead. Thanks.
I love the smart electric and I want one, but I dunno...I would totally pay $800 for a tuning kit if it got it down to like 7 seconds but that's not a big enough change for the money
I love my 2013 ED. It replaced my MR2-Spyder, it's extremely fast from 0-30, and it's more fun in the City than any other car I've driven. - Paid $5,000 for under 20K miles.
The regenerative braking is highly conditional, it does not automatically mean improved efficiency. For the average driver in heavy city traffic it would probably be beneficial, but you don't gain free energy. If you were able coast for longer instead of wasting energy on only partially restoring the battery, you would see better results. Even in my medium size city, I can get better economy by planning out my red light stops and coasting up to them.
Aussie2u hmmm I read the article and it seems that it only upgraded it to the Tesla “boosted” version. I already have the performance model. But thanks for the info!!! If you find anything that will give me more power than the performance model as a plug-n-play. Let me know!!!
There already is. There is Powerboost from Tesla that drops 0-60 by .5 second or if you don't mind voiding your warranty and losing OTAs there is the Ghost firmware that gets you P3 performance.
David DiStefano oh for sure. First time I hit the accelerator I was scared and laughing. I had never been in anything like it. But after 2-3 weeks of showing your friends it becomes normal. Haha that being said getting into my wife’s Nissan Rogue is a reminder of normal driving.
@@petermorales695 59K miles and I get 80+ miles during nice warm weather and about 50-60 miles in the dead of Seattle winter. I've never taken it all the way to empty and we usually just use it for groceries and in town trips.
High regen is an efficiency killer... unless it's detached from the throttle pedal. The i3 has strong off-throttle regen, and it's crazy hard to find the "coast" spot in normal driving. I would much rather have low level off-throttle regen, and paddles to increase it when wanted. Best efficiency is never using regen, but coasting down at net-zero power. Regen is only about 40-60% efficient at recovering the energy that was expended to accelerate the vehicle in the first place. The motor inverter is optimized for forward motion, not reverse.
It does not sound like it will hurt the motors. The battery, though - that's another matter. Your Smart car has a pretty small battery. The device you installed fools the computer - which is programmed at a trade-off point between performance and battery longevity. The device changes the trade-off - more acceleration and regenerative braking in exchange for more wear on the battery. How much will you lose? The manufacturer might be able to answer that question based on the developmental testing they conducted on the vehicle. But they're unlikely to respond. Aftermarket products are 'use at your own risk.'
Cool to see electric tuning starting to become a reality. But seems awfully expensive to spend 10% of the value of the car for such a small performance gain.
Would an all LED lighting upgrade(swapping out all of the halogen bulbs for good quality LED bulbs) affect range aswell? Considering the drls are halogen and its on all the time.
Tuning an EV to go faster comes down to at least 3 things! 1st, can the batteries handle the extra drain! 2nd, can the wires handle the extra load being pulled! & 3rd, can the electric motors use all that power! If my 1st 2 statements are the limiting issues, there will be big problems! Those parts could cause fires or an explosion! If the 3rd statement is the limiting factor, then you may need a bigger electric motor, but you'll most likely need to upgrade both the battery & wiring!
Electric motors are very different to ICE engines from the tuning point of view. ICE performance is all a very complex compromise. You can get more power at the expense of driveability emissions longevity etc. An electric motor always runs at the optimum point. That is the best for all conditions. What is also different is how much longer you can overpower them. An ICE has very large margins for durability. If you run it at twice the power it will wear out twice (or maybe faster) as fast. So manufacturers have a sweet spot for durability cost and performance. An electric motor is designed to work at rated power continuously. The same goes for the electronics. If you exceed it by a small percentage they blow up. The main problem being heating. The other problem is the strength of the magnets on the motor. Once you reach that limit you do not get more torque even if you put more current. So manufacturers design them to work closer to the limit than ICE. So the potential for hotting up is limited. You can improve the cooling so you can run closer to peak for linger but you can not make the peak much higher. The only exception would be where the manufacturer installed a bigger motor from anotge car. In that case you can get more but u don't see why they wouldn't let you have the full power. Unless it is to protect the battery. So the performance gains on EVs will be much lower than on ICE cars and will probably shorten the life of the battery.
Even stock, the 0 to 60 time isn't bad but I think the 11 seconds Smart says is for 0 to 100km/h. The difference in speed is small yes but electric cars lose steam at higher speeds. Interested to know the range now.
I wouldn't do this for the extra power gain because if you're buying a car like this, you're buying it because it's a small cheap EV...not because of it's performance. However, if the regen made a decent bump in range (say, 15-20 miles extra), I could see it being worth it...with that being said, I'd' go with the $555 module
On the contrary, I would be buying the car FOR the performance... as in a go-kart like experience. Most people don't understand that tiny cars can be thrilling without going super fast. Anybody that's driven a go-kart understands. Smallness enhances the sensation of speed.
@@ericharrison619 standard, about 4 seconds. A light electric car will pull away quicker than most cars initially. I have butthurt a lot of BMW and Mercedes drivers at traffic lights.
I just realized something. All things being equal, electric cars should theoretically accelerate faster at higher elevations due to slightly less air density/less aerodynamic drag. Chuckle if you'd like but thats's the reason NFL kickers can consistently kick longer field goals at Denver's Mile High Stadium; now Empower Field at Mile High, previously Invesco Field, previous to that Sports Authority Field.... so dumb). I'm a Patriots fan from NE and it'll always be called Mile High Stadium in my book! What was I talking about again?
I mean don't get me wrong that much time is nothing to sneeze at, and the improved regen would definitely be of interest to me. but being the engineer I am I'd probably rewire the battery a bit so that it would output more juice to the electric motor, rewire the motor so it could handle the extra power, and then have a range of about 3 miles, but I'd do it in 14 seconds. I'd also instantly regret it, but that's neither here nor there. lol
Tesla did convert the firs smart to electric which they were then awarded 50 million from Daimler to fund Model S. So Model S exists because of the success of converting a smart to electric and wooing daimler executives
I'm not a big fan of the idea of piggy-back systems in gas cars. Especially with newer vehicles the wrong information to the computer could cause damage to the engine over time depending on what signals you are duping and how aggressive it is. On an electric, well, I guess we'll see!
If the motor was good with that sort of power why didn't the manufacture set it like that? Probably because it's not so efficient and harder on motor and battery etc. Way too expensive imho. Love the car though, I'd have one here in the uk , I currently ride ebikes instead of running a second car but its mo fun in winter.
0-40 numbers might be more telling. It's also may be where you use it a lot. Avoiding Regen (and braking) is better for range. Lot of inefficiency in Regen.
A Dacia/Renault Sandero costs less than $10,000 brand new and has about 520 miles of range. Imagine a brand new electric car of that price with that range and a 5 minute charge time. That's the thing with electric. Cheap means less range. Whereas with gas cheap sometimes means more since they're more efficient. So now people with one car that is a Sandero for example, can now use it to travel far. But an electric car with that cost will have a range of like 60 miles. So electric just doesn't work now for most people. Off topic a little but just wanted to say.
For $700 I would have expected performance boost across the complete range and not just the 15-40 mentioned here. Also the $500 for just Regen is pricy as well. So that also speaks to what they think the acceleration is work... $200 vs $500 for Regen. Seems they are not impressed with their own module. Someone is trying to recuperate their NRE (non recurring engineering) fast and pocket a lot of profit or the market is not so big and they do t expect to sell many. Does something like a Pedal Commander work on an EV to take out the acceleration lag?
You might actually get some wheel spin. Even an IC smart can do that. That said, I'd advise against deactivating the system. This is a tall, short, top-heavy car that easily flips over without traction control. Its handling is more akin to a quad than a car (and not in a good way) with electronic helpers disabled.
