Originally Posted by
jimbrown
Well most of the problem is that most of the prople replying here have never lived in Europe and have no clue how things are there. The Smart car has been around since at least 1997 or so. They were designed to be used in Europe in the larger cities like Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and the like.
The average city person in Europe lives in a small 1000sgft apartment. There is almost no such thing as provided garage and on street parking is very limited. In some places you have to rent your street parking from the city. They give you a big steel post to put in the middle of it and lock it when not using it. The concept of street parking is entirely different. In most places in Europe it is illegal to park on the street but it is permissable to park on the sidewalk. I loved my jeep Wrangler that I had there because it could jump high curbs that most cars could not get up and over.
Garage space if available can run more than your apartment $1000 a month US.
In many of the cities you can not even drive in the center part of town and in others you must buy a special permit to do so and even then you may be limited to every other day.
The car would only be used on weekends and holidays. Most Europeans drive far less than Americans 3 or 4 thousand miles a year would be a lot for them. In most coutries all cars must pass a very through inspection at 2 years of age and in some cases it is cheaper to buy a new car than pass the inspection.
Cars in most countries are taxed and insured by engine size. Those less than 1liter are taxed the least. Anything over 3 liters (which most US cars are) are considered luxery cars and taxed heavily.