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Jakarta. Clean, small, efficient and cute — this could be the way of the future for Jakarta’s polluted and traffic-clogged streets.

For now, however, the capital will have to be content with just one new Smart Electric Drive car and an accompanying electric charging station, which were presented to the city administration on Wednesday by Mercedes-Benz Indonesia’s CEO, Rudi Borgenheimer, and the president director of Siemens Indonesia, Hans Peter Haesslein.

Governor Fauzi Bowo was on hand to receive the car at City Hall and take it for a quick — and silent — spin around the grounds.

He said the car came his way after he urged Borgenheimer to let Jakarta be a testing ground for the tiny green-and-white vehicle.

“This technology could put Jakarta at the same level with other major cities using clean technology,” he said.

While gas-powered Smart cars are common in many parts of the world, the all-electric version is still in the testing phase, with about 1,500 units in operation worldwide, mostly in Europe.

“Indonesia is one of the first countries outside Europe, and certainly the first in Southeast Asia, to have the Smart ED,” Borgenheimer said during the handover.

He said offering the microcar to the city was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts and a way to mark the 40th anniversary of Mercedes-Benz in Indonesia.

Mercedes-Benz, he added, is obliged to help tackle the issues of pollution and traffic in Jakarta.

The Smart car can travel up to 135 kilometers with one fully-charged lithium-ion battery, which takes about three hours to charge.

The car requires a standard 220-volt electric supply, which is provided through a Siemens AC charging pole that will be installed at City Hall.

Julieta Glasmacher, a spokeswoman for Siemens Indonesia, said it was evaluating a suitable energy source for the charging pole. “In Denmark, Siemens uses wind turbines as the electricity source, so this charging pole is not only charging the Smart ED but also saving energy,” she said.

Mercedes-Benz launched the Smart ED prototype in 2007, putting 100 units in London. In 2009, 100 units were placed in Berlin, and 250 units were dispatched to several cities across the United States last month.

Yuniadi Hartono, deputy marketing director for Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, said the administration would decide who would drive the car for the next year. The city, Mercedes-Benz and Siemens will evaluate the car’s performance at the end of the one-year period.

Mercedes-Benz is planning to mass produce the car worldwide by 2015, at a price that has yet to be decided. There are no versions of the Smart car currently for sale in Indonesia. But will it catch on here eventually?

“Passenger capacity and cargo loads are certainly one of the main concerns we are trying to overcome,” Yuniadi said, noting Indonesian consumers’ preference for SUVs and minivans.