It is the Finnish newspaper Techniikan Maailma who have discovered that a seat belt in the back seat of the new Smart #1 electric car can unbuckle unintentionally.
This was discovered during an evasive maneuver test at 75 km/h with three passengers in the back seat, when the seat belt for the left rear seat passenger was unfastened completely unintentionally.
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Therefore, the seat belt comes off
The problem lies in the design of the buckles for the seat belts.
Namely, the buckle for the middle passenger sits so that its lower edge lines up with the button to release the belt for the left rear seat passenger.
Thus, the belt for the person sitting on the left in the back seat can be unfastened if the middle passenger moves to the left in the seat – for example during a hard evasive maneuver.
According to Tekniikan Maailma, it is not safe to drive with three passengers in the back seat of the Smart #1 until the fault is fixed.
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A design flaw in the electric car
To verify that it really is a design flaw, and not a one-off, the paper ran the test several times. In two-thirds of these, the belt was unbuckled.
They also tested with another identical car and saw the same results.
Other cars built on the same platform, for example the Volvo EX30 and Smart #3, however, do not exhibit the same problematic behaviour.
Smart has been alerted to the error through its Finnish importer, and says it takes the error “very seriously”.
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