I am still shocked that the "Different Kind of Car Company" that produced my "different kind of car" in 1999 does not do the same thing this year.

In the summer, I get 43 MPG regularly on the interstate.

In the winter, with different gasoline formulation, I get 46 MPG.

In the city I get between 30 and 33.

Why is everybody bragging about hybreds when they don't get as good a mileage as a 1999 Saturn 5-speed?

I wish you had shown photos of your parking spaces. That would have been very eye-opening.

Just think what gas mileage a Smart Car with hybrid technology would get?

Don't accelerate slowly

---- Just a note, but you explicitly mentioned accelerating slowly in the article...don't do that. For better gas mileage, you should accelerate quickly thru the low gears, as the extra gas wasted in acceleration is more than made up by the extra mileage at a higher speed.

It may not sound like much, but I average 2-3 mpg over the gov't specs on my car on the highway...and that's traveling at 78-80 on average. ------

I disagree. I recently tried accelerating slowly in my Honda Ridgeline pickup, as well as coasting more when approaching a stop, and I increased my mileage by more than 4 miles/gallon.

I have been driving a 2006 smartfortwo for three years in Canada mainly in and around Vancouver. My urban mileage is about 60 /gallon or as we say here, 4.3 litres/100 km. This is using low sulphur deisel fuel. This is the same car that has been proved in Europe for 10 years.

The 2008 model designed expressly for the US market was downgraded to suit Detroit's fear of fuel efficient foriegn vehicles. Made larger and longer, the car now suffers from a 1 litre petrol engine from Mitsubishi, not the 799 cc deisel by Mercedes, as used in the original older model. This engine also demands expensive premium petrol and then only gives the owner 40mpg !

As fuel economy is the major purpose of the smartcar I can say that the US market for the European smartcar has been manipulated on behalf of the Detroit moguls who are now reaping their reward for wasting fuel and other raw materials for the last 80 years.

The current 2009 iteration of the Mercedes Deisel for the smartcar gets an amazing 85.6 mpg with an increase in performance. You guys have been had royally.

Referring to his 1999 Saturn:

"summer...43 MPG regularly on the interstate.

In the winter, with different gasoline formulation, I get 46 MPG.

In the city I get between 30 and 33."

Those are good numbers, but not as good as my 1980 Rabbit Diesel.

"Why is everybody bragging about hybreds when they don't get as good a mileage as a 1999 Saturn 5-speed?"

Which numbers are you looking at?

The Prius hybrid in the Southgate Motor Pool gets about 42 MPG *city* in the summer with ethanol-diluted gasoline. About the same on the highway, but a hybrid doesn't really have an advantage for highway cruising.

The big advantage of hybrids is in stop-and-go, lower-speed driving, because it can recover a lot of the energy other cars waste heating up the brakes. And it doesn't waste energy idling for long periods.

I don't know what happened to Saturn. Until last year the SMP included a 1994 Saturn SL that was a really good car. Economical, reliable, simple. Guess GM couldn't leave success alone?

Judging from the reviews and the letters from those who have actually driven the US version of the Smart Fortwo, it seems Mercedes made some dumb decisions in adapting it for the US market. Was it due to regulations? Expectations about Americans not being able to use a manual shift? I don't know, really, but I do get the distinct impression that the Smart Farhad tested and the ones I've driven here are two different cars.

OK, they are.

For one thing, the standard Smart here tends to use a diesel engine, and also has a manual shifter (since almost all cars in Germany have manual transmission, this isn't an issue. Germans prefer direct control and turn their noses up at wimps who can't handle shifting gears). But I am not surprised, since a few years ago I had read reports that Mercedes was designing an SUV variant because they thought that was all Americans wanted. So I blame the managers at Mercedes for crippling the design.

Still, I expect the Smart to do well, precisely because it is a good little one-person vehicle that saves fuel not so much from mileage, but in less time spent looking for a valid parking space. I notice this in my Fiat Panda as well, how I can exploit spaces the Audis and BMW limousines have to pass up on. Once the "size=safety" mentality fades, I think the Smart, the Mini and perhaps the new Fiat 500 may become more common on America's roads.

My 93 Suzuki Swift GT with a 1.3 and a five speed isn't that much bigger than a Smart while weighing about the same, carries five passengers if the three in the back are friendly, will touch 120 in fourth gear, smokes the front tires in first gear without dropping the clutch, handles and brakes like an autocrosser's wet dream and I can't get it under 30 mpg no matter how hard I hammer on the loud pedal with my depleted uranium toenails. I get an ear-to-ear grin every time I drive the little beast.

The best part is I paid $400 for it and have put over 30K miles on it in the last two years with nothing beyond basic maintenance.

Much smarter is good high-mpg car a few years old - Prizm, Escort Wagon, Corolla, Sentra - WITH A 5-SPEED and proper driving technique. My twelve-year-old Escort Wagon gets 37-38mpg all the time, and has hit 40mpg if I try really really hard - and it's got a LOT more utility than a Smart. It's comfy, probably handles better than Smart - and I can carry four people, or one passenger and two deer stands (and the deer on the way home). The design dates to 1991; engines/systems have gotten much better since then. I think car makers could do a LOT better than the Smart, and very easily. Imagine the Escort Wagon (or Prizm/Corolla wagon) with a more modern engine - same size/utility car, similar power output, better MPG. Why the heck don't they do it?