Smart ForTwo Celebrates 1.5M Units Produced
Prior to beginning its summer break at its Hambach, France factory, Smart achieved the milestone of building its 1.5-millionth ForTwo vehicle.
The milestone vehicle was a white ForTwo Electric Drive cabriolet and the achievement is another reason to celebrate as the automaker shuts down its plant for almost two months to prepare it for an upgrade. The plant, which has been producing the Smart ForTwo since 1998, will undergo its largest upgrade since it has opened with a large part of the assembly installations being completely renewed. Smart will be improving its plant for flexible processes in various areas of production.
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The automaker has invested over $261 million into the plant upgrades, which includes a new paint shop where an environmentally-friendly liquid painting process will replace the current powder-painting process. The plant has approximately 1,500 workers on site.
“1.5 million smart fortwo vehicles underline the uniquely compact smart’s success as city car. It inspires drivers in more and more metropolitan areas around the world, because no other car is so perfectly adapted to urban driving. And with traffic and parking becoming increasingly challenging in these areas, many more smart will follow, ” said Dr. Annette Winkler, head of smart.
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Jason Siu began his career in automotive journalism in 2003 with Modified Magazine, a property previously held by VerticalScope. As the West Coast Editor, he played a pivotal role while also extending his expertise to Modified Luxury & Exotics and Modified Mustangs. Beyond his editorial work, Jason authored two notable Cartech books. His tenure at AutoGuide.com saw him immersed in the daily news cycle, yet his passion for hands-on evaluation led him to focus on testing and product reviews, offering well-rounded recommendations to AutoGuide readers. Currently, as the Content Director for VerticalScope, Jason spearheads the content strategy for an array of online publications, a role that has him at the helm of ensuring quality and consistency across the board.
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iQ will be lucky to sell even a meager fraction of that. The small car sales snapshot came out recently and the iQ sold even less than... gulp Nissan Cube.