The German maker of yacht-like limos and bad-ass sports cars might be on a guilt-offset trip with a fleet of green micro cars.
It is not Daimler's first or only endeavour to tackle climate change and dwindling fossil fuel resources.
The company has been experimenting with fuel cell vehicles for over a decade.
By 2010, the first fuel cell Mercedes B-class cars, powered by hydrogengenerated electricity, will reach showrooms.
With the Smart cars ' two-seaters so small that two cars will fit in a regular parking lot ? Daimler is trying out
various other power alternatives.
In London, it is running a fleet of 100 battery-powered Smarts. The cars can run for about 115km before they need to be recharged, via a regular wall socket.
Here in Singapore, Daimler is testing 10 Smarts. Four are micro-hybrids, petrol versions which will automatically shut down at stops and restart once you step on the accelerator pedal.
One is a regular petrol model (a control car).
The other five are diesel cars. Of these,one is fuelled by regular diesel, two by synthetic diesel made from natural gas and the remaining two by jatropha biodiesel.
I pick the jatropha Smart because, to me, it is the most guilt-free option. Jatropha is a non-food vegetation that will
grow on land too barren for other crops and too dry for golf courses (an important consideration).
Jatropha farmers need not clear virgin forests to plant it. More importantly, it does not compete with food harvests.
I love jatropha.
The tiny tank in the Smart I drive contains 10 per cent jatropha biofuel and 90 per cent ultra low sulphur diesel.
The jatropha fuel is shipped from Gujarat, India, where Daimler has a pilot jatrophagrowing project. (Aww, that is so sweet,makes you want to forget about the company's 6.2m 5.5-litre lounge-on-wheels Maybach.)
So how does the jatropha-powered Smart go? For a car weighing less than 900kg, pretty sluggishly, actually. To keep up with traffic, you would sometimes have to keep your right foot planted (planted - get it?).
But you would forgive its modest performance,considering that the car is a champion sipper. Its 799cc 45bhp three cylinder engine requires only 3.3 litres of fuel to cover 100km.
That is less than one-fifth the consumption of the Mercedes GL450, a 2,400kg excavator disguised as a seven seat
family car.
Heck, it might even be more energyefficient than a steak-fed 120kg American pedalling a mountain bike.
The Smart is, of course, very nimble and manoeuvrable. You can squeeze it into the tiniest lot and weave it between lanes like a motorcycle.
There are two drive modes: automatic and quick shift manual. In the latter, the car will even prompt you when it is time to shift up, so you do not burn a drop more fuel than necessary.
If you obey it, you will often find the car struggling along in fifth. So I would normally obey my ears and shift when it is practicable to do so.
But you know, with its frugal and green credentials, you can drive the Smart like an oil sheikh drives his Hummer and still feel like a born-again Greenpeace activist.
To me, that is priceless.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on August 30, 2008.
