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The is the Smart Vision EQ ForTwo, and if that's a bit of a mouthful, you can sum it up by saying that this is the future of urban motoring as Smart sees it. Two seats. Autonomous. Electric power. Connectivity. And as much personalisation as you can handle.
That personalisation extends to the black panel screen at the front of the car, which isn't a radiator grille, but instead a display which can be adjusted to suit your mood or your needs. Frankly, the mind boggles at the possibilities... The doors, which look as if they've been brought in from the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, are covered in a film which can switch from clear, for seeing out, to a screen for showing weather data to those on the outside, for instance, or to blank off the door for privacy inside. For more character (and we're really not sure how we feel about this) the all-LED exterior lights can be programmed to look like traditional head-and-tail lights, or to take on the appearance of eyes to help make visual contact with pedestrians and cyclists.
"The smart vision EQ fortwo embodies the urban luxury of the future. It is a radical approach with a cool and minimalist design. The show car has the hallmark Smart proportions, with accentuated, pronounced wheel arches at the four corners and with no overhang," says Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer Daimler AG. "A multiplicity of digital surfaces inside and outside allows the next level of communication between human and automobile. The customer is able to personalise the vehicle according to their individual needs."
You'll have plenty of time to decide on what to put up on that screen and those doors, as the Smart EQ ForTwo has no steering wheel and no pedals. It's fully autonomous, and is part of what Mercedes calls its CASE future for car - Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric.
The electric bit comes from the EQ's 30kWh lithium-ion battery. Smart hasn't bothered giving us any claimed range or performance, and instead touts the battery's ability to act as a 'swarm' battery (feeding power to the electricity grid when plugged in at peak times if needed), and the car's ability to take itself to a recharging station when it needs to, not waiting to be told to charge up.
The sharing bit is Smart's new 1+1 idea, which when you've booked to use the car, sends you suggestions about possible passengers who might be headed your way and with whom you might want to share the ride. Grindr for car sharing, perchance?
Smart says it will integrate the EG ForTwo with the Car2Go sharing programme, which is already up and running worldwide, and which claims to have a car rented and used every 1.4 seconds. The idea behind the ForTwo's autonomy and need for tiny parking spaces is that there would always be one nearby, to be called up on your smartphone app.
"The smart vision EQ fortwo is our vision of future urban mobility; it is the most radical car sharing concept car of all: fully autonomous, with maximum communication capabilities, friendly, comprehensively personalisable and, of course, electric," says smart CEO Annette Winkler. "With the smart vision EQ fortwo, we are giving a face to the themes with which Mercedes-Benz Cars describes the vision of future mobility within the CASE strategy."
Inside, with no need for controls or conventional instruments, there is instead a massive 24-inch screen, complete with a rose-gold-effect frame, which is your digital playground for your time in the car. You don't actually touch it (for hygiene purposes) but instead control it with voice commands or by connecting your own phone or tablet to it. There are two smaller displays on either side through which the car communicates with you, letting you know what route it's taking or if there are delays ahead.
It's also the first time that the EQ badge has been used on anything other than a Mercedes concept. EQ will eventually become the umbrella brand for all of Merc's battery car projects, from Smart to Mercedes-Benz to AMG.