Say hello to…
…the latest car from the Smart brand, the #5, an all-electric family SUV with a 96kWh battery and a claimed range of 370 miles.
Five trim levels are available. The first three are rear drive and the top two all-wheel drive. The entry Pro version has a 335hp motor, the next two have a 358hp motor and the top two have a 580hp output.
- Pro
- Pro+
- Premium
- Pulse
- Summit
Standard equipment on the Pro includes 150kw charging, panoramic roof, 19-inch alloys, powered boot lid, powered front seats, heated front seats, twin-zone climate control and 360-degree camera.
Pro+ adds 400kW charging, 13-inch infotainment screen, wireless phone charging and 10.25-inch driver’s display.
Premium adds heat pump, park assist, dual 13-inch infotainment screens and an uprated sound system.
Pulse adds off-road mode, high beam assist and leather seats.
Summit adds gesture boot lid and 20-inch alloys.
Is The Smart 5 Suitable For My Fleet
With such a large battery and decent claimed range, plus excellent interior space (a 630-litre boot and a 72-litre front boot in the rear-drive versions) plus good equipment levels, the Smart 5 should be a fleet winer, however, in our testing the car wasn’t that efficient in the real world. We were achieving 2.7m/kWh which would give a 259 mile real-world range. In today’s market, that’s nothing special.
Our test car also insisted it would do more than 300 miles when it was fully charged, plus we experienced a couple of small electrical glitches. One that happened fairly frequently was that Apple CarPlay would drop out. The second issue was that once, after being locked and left overnight, the car had ‘forgotten’ to turn back on the warnings for lane keeping and speed limits. We rather liked the second issue, but it was still an error.
Leasing A Smart 5
Gateway2lease is offering the Smart 5 Premium for £746 a month on a 3+36 contract with 10,000 miles a year. Forecast maintenance rates come in at £45 a month, according to Gensen Reports and the Class 1A NIC is £25 a month.
Driving A Smart 5
The Smart 5 is one of those cars that quickly develops a bit of charm. Part of that comes from the styling, which stands out from the increasingly uniform crowd of mid-size family SUVs, but it also comes from the cabin experience. The interior design feels fresh and different, while the infotainment system has its own character and operating logic rather than simply copying what everybody else is doing.
On the move, comfort is clearly the priority. The suspension setup is quite soft, which works well around town and on broken rural roads where the 5 smooths out uneven surfaces impressively well. It delivers the kind of relaxed ride quality that many rivals have sacrificed in pursuit of sharper handling.
The trade-off comes at motorway speeds where the softer setup means the car never feels quite as settled as the best long-distance cruisers in the segment. In normal driving that is manageable enough, but the issue becomes more noticeable when using either of the two adaptive cruise control modes. Both systems appear to operate very similarly and, frustratingly, neither allows the lane keeping assistance to be fully disabled. That can leave the driver making regular steering corrections as the car tries to position itself within the lane, creating an odd sensation of the vehicle subtly fighting against your inputs. It never feels unsafe, but over a long motorway journey it can become surprisingly tiring.
FleetandLeasing.com Verdict On The Smart 5
Despite not being particularly efficient and suffering electrical gremlins, the Smart 5 is a very appealing car.
Smart 5
- Model: 5 Premium
- Power: 358hp
- Torque: 373Nm
- Max speed: 125mph
- 0-62mph: 6.5s
- Official range: 370 miles
- Test range: 259 miles
- CO2 emissions: 0g/km
- BIK tax band 2026/27: 4%
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