The Smart is now in the US. A little commuter thingie, sure, but we tend to have more open road/long haul driving, so it'll be a limited market. What's forgotten in Europe is that what they call countries, we call states. What they call states, we call counties. What they call counties, we call a short commute. 😉
Actually, i believe a state and country is pretty similar really, for example here we still have the terms like "enemy of the state" and so forth, same thing different name, sure we have different languages, but so does Quebec (i know its canada but they are similar to usa). We have a centralised government now for europe as a whole so the EU as a whole is kind of like a united countries of europe, not too dissimilar from united states of europe..the difference is trivial.
Not to mention america has straight roads mostly, europes roads can be quite bendy and out of the way, so commuting can some distances can sometimes be quite a nightmare.
As for long haul driving, your argument is soooooo wrong, the smart car has far superior MPG than any american car, youd get a LOT further on a lot less juice driving a smart car, so if your doing long journeys, surely its smarter to use something that has better fuel consumption.
I love the idea of the Smart, and I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Trouble is, I need 350-400 miles of unsupported (as in, open desert) travel at 80 mph/135 kph between stops sometimes.
Huh? it could do 80 easy, probably even 90. Depends what model you get, i think americans are so used to fuel guzzling oversized beasts that the second you see some small european car you picture it being some granny ride from home to the grocery market, seriously come on guys, think of it like a sports car, as in the fact its only 2 seater, apart from that its shorter and more fuel efficient and can do quite reasonable speeds.