Smart Roadster Rebirth: Electric Version Could Hit The Roads

Despite manufacturing ceasing over twenty years ago, the Smart Roadster could potentially resurface in a battery-electric form, like a Phoenix emerging from the ashes. In 2020, shortly after Geely bought a 50% interest in the brand, Smart Europe CEO Dirk Adelmann said that the company envisioned what a new Roadster may look like.

During an interview with Autocar, he revealed that a "very wild colleague" had the first blueprints for a new Roadster. “We have three great cars, and none of them is a Roadster, but why not? If we do a Roadster, rest assured it will be very compact—for sure, a two-seater.”

Adelmann elaborated by saying that the Roadster has a special place in his heart because it was the very first vehicle he worked on upon joining Smart. Deliberate aims to build it with the latest Electric Compact Architecture (ECA). But as we discovered earlier this week, Smart can only justify the expense of developing this new platform and business if it finds a partner.

“If you share this platform with partners—we're still in evaluation—then you can also share the investment costs and the production site, etcetera, and it starts making sense,” Adelmann said. “The last thing we want to do is produce a vehicle where nobody is earning money, because that vehicle will not last for long. We want to have a positive business case for us, for our retailers, and, in the end, for our customers.”