2025 Smart #1 Premium review

Smart started life as a specialist compact car builder. A brand centred around the idea of urban mobility. Built with a specifically European focus (having started off as a division of Mercedes-Benz), the curious little compact cars were perfect for attention-grabbing mobile billboards and as niche runabouts with fairly narrow appeal.

In Australia the brand was put on hold in 2007, so we missed Smart's transition into an electric vehicle brand. We won't miss Smart's rebirth, though, with the full line-up of compact electric SUVs maintaining the old Smart's city-centric focus, but adding in new Smart's desire to be a more well-rounded and slightly premium choice.

Just like last time, Smart's range will be sold by select Mercedes-Benz dealers, but this time the importer isn't Mercedes itself, but rather by LSH Auto, a company that owns and runs over 340 Mercedes-Benz dealerships around the world, including flagship Benz dealers in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane – where the Smart range will be sold.

Behind the scenes, Mercedes-Benz is still a joint venture partner in the Smart brand, tasked with the design of the new range, while the platform underpinning the cars and the Chinese factory they're built at are the responsibility of automotive brand Geely, which also runs brands like Volvo, Polestar, Zeekr, and Lotus among others.

So whereas the Smarts of old were often considered limited in their appeal despite their innovative engineering, does the new Smart #1 still attract the same attention as its oddball ancestors, or has the #1 evolved it to a higher plane?

The Smart #1 is offered in three distinct variants, starting with the entry-level #1 Pro+ from $54,900, moving up to the #1 Premium from $58,900, with the range topped by the high-performance #1 Brabus from $67,900 – all before on-road costs.

Both the Pro+ and the Premium variants are powered by a 200kW/343Nm rear electric motor and equipped with a 66kWh battery. The claimed driving range (based on WLTP testing) is 440km. The Brabus version switches to dual electric motors with 315kW and 543Nm of performance potential.

Standard equipment starts strong with features like a panoramic glass roof and powered blind, adaptive cruise control with lane-centring, 19-inch alloy wheels, LED head and tail-lights, a powered tailgate, and a 12.8-inch infotainment system included as standard.

The mid-spec Premium being tested also comes with a 13-speaker Beats sound system, 10-inch head-up display, 'Duo-leather' interior trim, matrix LED headlights, automatic parking assist, and a heat pump for the climate-control system giving the Premium an extra 20km of claimed range over the Pro+.

The #1 Premium is also available with a selection of different two-tone paint options, plus additional single-tone choices, and the interior is available in single-tone and two-tone trims.

The Smart #1 isn't alone in the electric compact SUV space, this segment continues to grow.

You might also be torn between the Hyundai Kona Electric, from $54,000 to $71,000 plus on-road costs or the similarly style-focused Mini Clubman Electric kicking off from $64,990 up to $77,990.

The Volvo EX30 also crosses paths, with a $59,990 to $71,290 price range, as does the Zeekr X from $56,900 to $64,900 (all before on-road costs), but these two are related to the Smart. Although it may not look like it from the outside, the Scaleable Experience Architecture 2 platform that underpins them is the same as that used for the Smart #1 and #3.

While the #1 is big by Smart standards, it's still not exactly plus-sized.

From nose-to-tail it measures 4270mm, making it 175mm shorter than a Mini Countryman, and 115mm shorter than a Hyundai Kona. In other words, it's as compact as its urban-centric positioning demands.

On the inside that translates to a cabin that's built to accommodate people more so than luggage. The passenger compartment feels spacious thanks to a high roof and raised seating, but it does trim back width, and even though it can seat five, four feels like its natural comfort zone.

The front seats are separated by a high centre console that sweeps up to join the dash like a single, unbroken block. It is somehow both cossetting and airy, with the console tilted at just the right height to be a functional armrest. The dash itself comprises a cheerful discorectangle structure, filled with repeated metallic forms in the vents, and an illuminated section ahead of the passenger.

There's heaps of storage too with a large open area at the edge of the seats big enough for a handbag, a lidded tray over the wireless phone charger, a sliding cover of the cupholders, and a compartment under the armrest that's cooled or heated via the cabin climate – which is great for keeping snacks and drinks cool on hot days.

The seats keep the design theme going with sausage-shaped side bolsters, and more obround detailing on the headrests. The front seats are comfortable but compact. Although they don't hug or grip you tightly, they've been scaled down to fit the available space.

The rear seats are surprising in the amount of space they offer. There's good leg room back there, and space under the front seats to slide your feet under. I carried a 190cm passenger up front with a 182cm passenger behind them in the rear and neither was forced to compromise on their seating position.

The rear seats have air vents through the console with a USB-A and USB-C port underneath. The centre armrest folds down to reveal two cupholders.

Folding the rear seats felt a little fussy to me. The seats can be 60:40 folded, but the pull strap at the side of the seat is hard to reach, and you tend to have your head in the path of the tumbling seat. Returning it back to position it often locked in midway, and was a struggle to unlock and set right at times.

Because of the upsized cabin space, the boot feels smaller by comparison. There's 313 litres of space with the rear seats up (compared to 470L in a Kona EV and 318L in an EX30). Smart lists a larger 323L in the base-model Pro+.

Under the boot floor there's a sub-storage layer to make stacking the boot easier. The tailgate is power-operated, with a hands-free opening function.

A compact storage space under the bonnet holds an extra 15L. It's handy for storing AC charge cables, but not suited as regular item storage and can only be opened from inside the cabin and not via the key fob or the car's connected app.

Smart really wants technology to be the star of its Australian return, and the 12.8-inch touchscreen in the #1 plays a big role in that.

Instead of your typical row of tiles and list of functions in the infotainment, Smart provides a very personalised and iPhone-like feel. Right from the beginning it offers a 'hello' set-up screen welcoming you to the device, just like iOS would. From here you're invited to set up your car and connect to the Hello Smart app to retain all your personalisation settings.

It's here that the trouble began for me... Despite a helpful customer experience representative from Smart walking me through the process, we couldn't get the car to save my settings at the end of the journey. He sheepishly laughed it off as a side-effect of the car being loaned and linked to multiple accounts, but even still it took me four days of trying to get the car to store my preferences and acknowledge me as a returning user.

Not ideal when most cars can do the same in less than five minutes. We also had a system lock-up at one point, freezing the infotainment and cluster, but a long press on the power button was all that was needed to reset the system. Not something you should have to do, but easy enough to manage all the same.

You get a digital avatar, in the form of a polygonal fox, but it sadly doesn't really do much apart from pop up a speech bubble when you invoke the voice-activated assistant. The homescreen has a 'tiny planet' vibe to it, but you can't tap, swipe, or explore the globe in the centre.

From there the experience was much more as you'd expect. Once you swipe into the more traditional app grid you can access navigation (which is very slick to use), FM and digital radio, Bluetooth, Spotify, and wired or wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The Premium also features a 13-speaker Beats sound system, which like all Beats products sounds punchy but lacks clarity at high volume.

Diving into the car's settings is a bit of a gargantuan task. There's a row of settings functions down the side of the screen, then often two or three screens within to get to detailed settings for everything from safety systems to cabin comfort and lighting, right down to your choice of head- and tail-light unlock animations.

You also need to use the screen to open adjustment menus for mirrors and the head-up display, then adjust those via the steering wheel and not the screen, which feels disconnected.

The screen itself is very quick to load and responsive to touch inputs, which is fantastic. You can pull down for instant quick access to climate controls, 360-camera views, or the app drawer, plus a physical button below the screen gives you quick access to brake regen settings, single-pedal driving, lane-assist, and more. Another is just there for drive-mode selection, which is refreshing to see.

The driver will rely most heavily on the colour head-up display (HUD) for driving info, and it offers good clear info. The instrument display is a thin colour screen strip. Where I thought this might underwhelm, it was actually all you really need, particularly with the HUD handling most of the info like speed, blind-spot alerts, adaptive cruise-control status and more.

The Hello Smart app lets you check in on the vehicle and check driving range, and charging status, as well as locking and unlocking the doors, and vehicle location info. Like the infotainment, the layout of the app isn't immediately obvious, though the two are similar so it's quick and easy enough to learn.

Despite being newly introduced to Australia in 2024, the Smart #1 carries an ANCAP test result with a 2022 time stamp. It is rated five stars, but cars with a 2023 or 2024 test date are tested to slightly more stringent assessment criteria. The earlier date reflects the car's international launch, and its assessment by Euro NCAP, which forms the basis of the ANCAP score.

In the individual section scores, the #1 was rated with a 96 per cent adult occupant protection rating, an 87 per cent child occupant protection rating, 70 per cent for pedestrian protection, and 94 per cent for safety assist systems.

Smart has always held safety as a core value, even when it was producing ultra-compact cars, so it's good to see the new generation of cars continue this legacy.

The Smart #1 comes equipped with a comprehensive list of standard safety and driver assist features. All variants in the range feature autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection and intersection intervention, lane-keeping and lane-centring assist, blind-spot detection and door-open alert (to warn of approaching traffic or cyclists), 360-degree camera, auto park assist, and a driver monitoring camera.

It's here that Smart still has some fine-tuning to do. While the safety systems weren't unsafe or alarming, the driver-assist functions can grate.

The 'Smart Pilot Assist' function for the cruise control provides a level of self-supporting driving for short stints, but the lane-centring tugs at the wheel constantly and won't let the driver easily move over for obstacles or potholes in the way. It's fidgety too and never feels settled.

The adaptive cruise control is similarly unsettled. Rather than maintain a constant speed, you can very clearly feel the car oscillating: accelerate, coast, accelerate, coast. It's a frustrating feeling and often led to me abandoning cruise control altogether on longer trips.

The Pilot Assist also has curve speed reduction that's far too conservative, dropping speed by as much as 20km/h for even very minor bends in the road. A few times it would tend to detect slower-moving cars in a neighbouring lane as either too close to pass, or would fail to register when traffic has sped up.

The speed-sign spotting tech proved mostly accurate, but the default setting is audible alerts for every speed sign change, and every time the limit is exceeded by even a single kilometre. It's not a subtle warning either, and gets annoying very quickly.

These alerts can be switched off, but it's a multi-step process and needs to be done each time the car is started. Unlike lane assist and one-pedal, there's no shortcut to jump to the settings for these functions either.

These issues are irritations rather than major flaws. We've seen brands like MG roll out significant improvements to driver assist systems in the past, so hopefully Smart has revisions in mind for the future. It would be great to see the #1 drive with a more natural and fluent feel because the fundamental dynamics are decent (as discussed further down).

Smart offers a five-year, 150,000km warranty on its cars in Australia. While five years/unlimited kilometres is the new normal, unless you cover more than 30,000km per year, this warranty should cover you just fine.

The EV battery and associated high-voltage components like the drive motor are covered by an eight-year warranty with the same 150,000km cap.

Five years' servicing is included at no cost for any car purchased before December 31, 2024. For cars purchased in 2025, Smart will run a capped-price servicing program tallying $2021 over five years. Service intervals are every 12 months or 20,000km.

Running a comprehensive insurance quote for the Smart #1 Premium came out at a reasonable $1505 per year using a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

The same driver would be looking at $2532 per year to cover a Hyundai Kona Electric Extended Range, $2064 for a Mini Countryman E Core, and $1986 for a Volvo EX30 Single Motor Plus. As insurance quotes can vary greatly between insurers, it pays to shop around, but the Smart #1 appears to be quite reasonable.

From a full charge, the Smart #1 Premium has a claimed 440km range, but in regular use the Smart's 66kWh nickel cobalt manganese (NMC) chemistry battery suggests capping charge at 90 per cent, meaning a more realistic 400km day-to-day range. The battery can be fully charged for long-distance trips.

Real-world figures saw electric consumption of 15.7 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometres, slightly more efficient than Smart's claimed consumption of 16.7kWh/100km. Despite using the same battery and motor as the entry-level #1 Pro+, the Premium has a slightly longer claimed range (440km versus 420km) thanks to the use of a heat pump, which boosts efficiency slightly.

My daily commute of around 90km a day made it easy to plug in and top up overnight from a 15-amp wall socket. My standard home charger is enough to run a daily top-up in under four hours. With a dedicated AC wallbox, the Smart #1 can handle up to 22kW, but on a more typical 7.4kW or 11kW home charger, a full charge would take from 10 hours to 6h 39min.

Away from home, the Smart #1 can rapid-charge at up to 150kW, allowing a 10–80 per cent top-up in 30 minutes.

As a compact SUV with a largely urban focus, the Smart #1 perhaps defies expectations slightly.

From behind the wheel, the Smart #1 feels nimble, agile, and quite zippy without being too zesty for use on city streets.

It would seem Smart has devoted plenty of time and attention to balancing steering, handling, and ride comfort. It's not perfect, but for a brand that's never tackled a car this big before, it's a very good effort – particularly when some other Chinese EVs on the market seem to treat driver engagement as an afterthought.

The steering is quite light in its default Standard mode, though there is a Light mode that makes it almost zero-effort and a Heavy mode. Rather than try and pass those settings off as 'comfort' and 'sport', Smart labels them for what they really are. I found the Heavy mode nicer to use on curvy roads, adding in a little extra stability, but Standard mode still feels fluent and connected.

The ride quality is decent too. Only on very rough surfaces did the #1 start to feel a bit jittery and repeated corrugations could see the front and rear ends struggle to keep pace. In most situations, though, the ride glides over tarmac joins and speed humps. Composed enough to ride out big hits but settled enough to recover quickly.

At the rear axle, the 200kW/343Nm motor is a punchy unit in a fairly compact package. It's not quick enough to pin you to your seat, but it'll gather pace quickly from a standstill and still has a bit of poke in reserve for swift rolling acceleration.

There are a number of set-up options for the driver, including low, medium and high regenerative braking settings, plus a one-pedal (called S-pedal) mode. Smart needs to tweak that regen a little in my opinion. In S-pedal mode the car coasts for a few moments before it starts to slow, making it much harder to modulate than systems that start to slow as soon as you raise your foot.

In busy city traffic, arguably where a one-pedal mode is most beneficial, this meant lurchy progress and needing to jump on the brakes when the car coasts further than expected.

Drive modes include Eco, Comfort and Sport. As expected Eco softens off acceleration, though only very slightly, Comfort is just code for 'normal', and Sport adds a bit more aggression to accelerator applications. The middle setting of everything – Comfort drive mode, Standard steering, and medium regen – feels like the car's ideal setting to me.

Noise suppression is decent on the open road. Tyre noise is fairly well isolated and wind noise is low, though at highway speeds the frameless windows let a bit of hiss through, and on fidgety surfaces you can hear the glass chattering within the seals.

If you want to play with fake engine noises there's a selection of those too, but you can't control the volume and they're quite obtrusive. One passenger even did the classic hands-on-ears panic when they first heard it. Honestly, the experience is far nicer with the video game sounds off.

Because the #1 is such a nice, agile little car to drive most of the time, it's all the more noticeable that the lurchy cruise control and dimwitted one-pedal driving stand out as sore points.

While you can tow with a Smart #1, the permissible tow limit is fairly modest. Rated to tow up to 1600kg with a braked trailer, or 750kg unbraked, the Smart could be handy for hitching up a dirt bike or two, a golf cart, or something else similarly hobby-sized.

Depending on the size and weight of your trailer, driving range will be impacted, but with no towbar fitted on the car we drove we weren't able to put this to the test.

The Smart #1 has a 470kg payload, which you'll need to keep in mind for passengers, cargo, and towball weight to ensure you don't overload the vehicle.

While the appeal of the Smart #1 is far broader than the old Smart ForTwo that Aussies are probably more familiar with, it is still a car with a narrow niche.

Smart never needed to be a brand for all, but the small SUV sizing maintains the brand's urban focus. This time, though, the #1 acknowledges that urban dwellers who only have room for a single car in their garage (or street) might also need to add a friend or two for the journey, or bring a spur-of-the-moment furniture purchase home with them.

The premium look and feel of the interior are huge lures for the Smart #1, and the roomy back seat is clearly fashioned for adults. The flip side is that boot space isn't a headline act, but that's okay.

With nimble and agile dynamics, the Smart #1 makes every drive a fun one. It's in the electronics' tuning that Smart needs to work harder. The lurchy cruise control and twitchy lane-assist systems, and the one-pedal driving mode that don't work with the driver are all potentially software-updateable qualms. We just hope updates are something on Smart's radar.

The appeal of this new model still stands out, though, and for many the friendly styling and premium interior will be more than enough.

For all but the most performance-hungry buyers, the Smart #1 Premium feels like the smartest choice in the range. Just a little more efficient than the entry-level Pro+, with a more comprehensive equipment list, and not outrageously priced.

If you're interested in a Smart of your own, or just want to play around with the colour and trim combinations available, you can build your Smart #1 here and place a reservation deposit. If you live in Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane you can visit a Smart showroom in person, find your Smart dealer here.

If a compact electric SUV like the Smart #1 or its similarly sized competitors are on your radar, you can find a range of electric SUVs for sale at Drive Marketplace.

With Smart only a recent return to the Australian market, the brand is sure to have more news since this review first went live. You can read all about the latest Smart news here.