Nice to see the Smart car finally getting back to its roots. It was invented in Switzerland and meant to be a high-efficiency vehicle, but ten years later they are just beginning to incorporate the efficiency into models:

The diesel version has a fuel consumption of only 3.3 litres per 100 kilometres with a carbon dioxide emission figure of only 88 g/km.

After running a test with 100 electric-powered Smarts in London, the car maker also announced the mass production of Smart electric-drive for 2010.

Strange how the inventor wanted a hybrid so many years ago, but Daimler refused and marketed it as a compact vehicle only.

On its tenth birthday the Smart finally appears to fulfil the destiny marked out by its inventor Hayek. Daimler has just announced that from October 2008 all the petrol-engined 45 kW/61 hp and 52 kW/71 hp Smart fortwos would be fitted standard with micro hybrid drive (MHD) and fuel-saving start-stop systems.

It took ten years and Toyota executive leadership to make the obvious obvious to Daimler. Talk about conservative.