A two-seat city car still has to work on a Tuesday

This week in Paris, smart put an electric two-seat city car back on a stand and called it the #2. A stand is good at one job. It makes a short car look finished. The desk was not on the stand. The test we can actually run is the Tuesday after, on a street with a kerb, a bag, and a second person who may already be sitting in the only other seat.

Two seats is the promise

A two-seat city car is clearer than a family car that has been cut down until the rear bench is a rumour. It is for a driver and, on some trips, one other adult. That is a smaller promise, and a smaller promise is easier to keep, until the bag will not sit on a lap for the whole journey.

We looked at that in the short cars the desk has been using, not on a turntable. If the passenger is in the seat, the bag needs a boot that is a shelf, not a polite gap behind the shoulders. If the gap is all there is, the bag takes the seat, and the second seat was the reason the car had two.

The kerb is the other half

A show floor is flat. A city kerb is not. A short car that is easy to slot into a bay still has to open its door beside that kerb without a climb, and it still has to leave a number plate where a camera can read it when the bumper is close to the stone. None of that is a figure from a stand. It is how a two-seater either earns the bay or stays a photograph.

What we will keep

We will not score a car we have not sat in. We will keep the list small: one passenger, one bag, one ordinary kerb, and a phone that still has a place when the other seat is taken. The lights can wait. Tuesday is the check.