Daimler with its luxury car status is not a brand you’d be likely to associate with low CO2 emissions. But it’s the company behind smart, a small light car perfect for city driving. Smart was launched in 1998, and due to its size it is cheaper to run and lower in CO2 emissions than many cars on the road. The smart website uses all the right words - it’s “committed to making its vehicles and production methods as environmentally-friendly as possible.” It sounds good in theory. But what about in practice?

Daimler has teamed up with utility company RWE to bring 100 Smart cars with an electric drive onto Berlin roads by 2010.

It all sounds great doesn’t it?

But Greenpeace worked out the well-to-wheel CO2 emissions of a Smart
fuelled with RWE power and that came out at 90 g/km which sounds like a respectable amount. Could Daimler be making a smart move?

But hang on a minute - the diesel version of this model, according to smart’s own website, has CO2 emissions of just 88 g/km. That’s 2g less CO2 emissions for every kilometre you drive.

And if smart were really serious about making their electric cars, as “environmentally friendly as possible” they’d make sure that the electricity they used came from sustainable sources.

And by the way, Daimler can use the lower emissions from their smart cars to offset the gas guzzling Mercedes Benz which means they have to do less to make those cars run efficiently. Remember, CO2 emissions are averaged out across the range. It’s nicely illustrated in this Greenpeace video.