Smart

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Smart car? How about Smart truck? New Daimler concept set for Detroit Auto Show

Pickup trucks are all the rage, with a new offering of alternative fuel selections on the market as well as one of the most unique vehicles, a Smart For-us concept pickup, set to debut at that Detroit Auto Show in January. A Daimler division product, the Smart For-us will be the biggest of the tiny Smart cars, currently represented only the Smart ForTwo The Smart For-us concept is 140 inches long (11 feet, 6 inches), about six feet shorter than a Ford F-150 pickup, the United States' best-selling passenger vehicle "In a tongue-in-cheek manner, the For-us signals that this is the right car for the young-at-heart with active lives who attach importance to low emissions and taking up minimum road

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Smart, Bentley get top, dubious automakers' mpg honors

Smart, with its line of electric or gasoline two-seaters, has the best gas mileage average among car manufacturers, according to a new Brighter Planet study of 2011 cars and trucks. Throughout its lineup, Smart averages 61 mpg. Mini (30.0 mpg) is second across its production line. Honda (27.4 mpg) third is and the top manufacturer with a full line of cars, trucks and SUVs. Suzuki (25.5) and Nissan (25.3) round out the top five, according to the study that detailed Brighter Planet’s ranking of 39 automobile manufacturers included in the 2011 EPA Fuel Economy Guide based on miles-per-gallon fuel consumption or equivalents of all models in each company’s portfolio. Bentley has the dubious honors in the study, the lowest manufacturer-wide

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Daimler AG, manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, fined $185 million for bribery

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered Daimler to pay $93.6 million in criminal fines and $91.4 million in civil penalties. According to court documents, Daimler AG and its subsidiaries in Germany, Russia, and China agreed to the filing of a single count of conspiracy to violate U.S. anti-bribery laws. The Justice Department said Daimler, whose stocks trade on multiple exchanges in the U.S., “engaged in a long-standing practice of paying bribes to foreign government officials.” Countries whose officials were bribed, according to the court documents: China, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Latvia, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and several others. The Justice Department said the bribes were made “to assist in

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Smart Fortwo Gets Insurance Institute For Highway Safety's Top Rating

The Fortwo’s seat/head restraints earned the second highest rating of acceptable for protection against whiplash in rear impacts. Smart Fortwo is classified a microcar, meaning it’s smaller even than minicars. Weighing about 1,800 pounds, the Smart is more than three feet shorter and almost 700 pounds lighter than a Mini Cooper. It weighs about a third as much as one of the heaviest vehicles the Institute has tested, the BMW X5, a midsize SUV. As the price of fuel climbs and tougher federal fuel economy requirements kick in, auto companies are expected to introduce more small vehicles to the market. The Smart is the smallest car the Institute ever has tested. The IIHS test results generally demonstrate how well vehicles

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