Smart Sales Collapse in September

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 2:50AM EST · Published Oct 4, 9:00AM EDT

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Smart Sales Collapse in September — © courtesy of Daimler AG

Smart, the tiny car brand of Mercedes-Benz, had another sharp sales drop in September. Across the United States, Smart sold only 605 cars, off 19.3% from the same month last year.

September’s performance was slightly better than the first three quarters, during which sales fell 25.6% to 4,044. Smart is one of the least expensive cars on the road, with a base price under $15,000.

Smart has gotten some harsh reviews. From Consumer Reports:

Tooling around in a Smart car is like owning a puppy: Everyone wants to see it, touch it, and ask lots of questions. But not everyone wants to deal with the headaches. With its elevated seating position, amazing maneuverability, and comparatively microscopic dimensions, the 2016 Smart ForTwo should make for an excellent city car. But the harsh ride and jet-blast noise levels will probably drive you crazy. And its 36 mpg overall isn’t great compared with cars that boast more room and comfort.

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Smart ranks third from the bottom in the 2016 J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Study and at the very bottom of the 2016 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study.

Smart has a road ahead so hard that it is difficult to imagine how it can navigate it.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.