Chinese Step In And Save SMART From The Graveyard With 50:50 Joint Venture

Geely is taking the long view with Volvo, Lotus and now Smart.

All three brands are dubious at best and none of them have any real mass-market potential. Volvo is pretending to be Mercedes with their ridiculous pricing. Lotus has always been more hype and aura than any substantive reality. Geely is just buying cottage industry brands for the sake of having a hobby.

Agree with your observation. They are building a stable of brands and should do very well for them at home and now starting to make some headway in Europe.

Volvo is already being mismanaged. The whole Poledancer effort should be Volvo. Volvo as a brand is moving to irrelevance...ditto Lotus...ditto smart.

Farsighted move on Geely's part....The primary place the Smart car works in the US is in congested urban areas, like NYC. They are actually quite popular here.

Contractors actually commonly use them because they are very easy to park (the are plenty of free street parking spots where they fit but other cars will not). The gas Smart car was discontinued a few years ago but it filled the "contractor" niche quite well. The all have roof racks on them that have a ladder or something strapped to it.

The NYPD has a HUGE fleet of electric SMART cars - the size is right - they drive up and down the footpaths in Central Park and even up the bike lanes if there is an emergency and traffic is clogging the road.

The same goes for that tiny, non-discontinued, Scion/Toyota but there are many more Smarts around NYC for some reason.

In NYC, 3 out of 4 Smarts has "contractor" signage painted on it. MB/Geely should bring back the gas version though.

SMART actually works great in NYC and they actually do very well in collisions, relatively speaking.

Geely buying FCA would be a smart move but buying into Smart was a dumb-as-bricks move.

@MD- Not sure posters can handle the truth.

Smart hasn't built an amazing, storied brand name. Geely could have saved money and created a new brand for the EVs and they would have been exactly at the same place they are now.

As usual MD does not know what he is talking about. This is not only about a name and a logo but also strengthening the connection Geely-Daimler. (Geely owns almost 10% of Daimler.)

And why would anybody buy FCA?

No one is going to say how this copied the Toyota IQ huh? If it was a Hyundai then that's what would had been said. But because it isnt Korean its "original."

The reason anyone would buy FCA is because of Jeep. Its not about how well built or how reliable Jeeps are or are not. It has fantastic product name recognition world wide as an off road vehicle. Also Alfa and Maserati have name value regardless of how well they are or not made. Fiat should probably simply stay in Europe and South America. Certainly FCA is a better buy than Smart.

Volvo has been on a tear, you see them everywhere now. I wouldn't be surprised if Geely has something similar planned for Lotus and SMART.

The rednecks in this forum likes to hold dearly on to their NASCAR brands and ICE engines, those who know better just laugh at them.