First Drive Review Fiat 500e: Delicious Electric Piedmont Cherry

It's rather rare for a car to consistently sell well for over ten years – but the Fiat 500 has managed to do so since 2007. It offers a mix of great Dolce Vita aesthetics, "must-have" details, and remains affordable. Then everything was supposed to be completely new and electric: The first camouflaged prototypes led us to believe that Fiat would electrify the 500 but wouldn't touch the body – essentially re-releasing the 500e, which had been delivered in the smallest doses in the USA, with a new battery and electric motor. Understandable, considering the 13-year-old design still sells like hotcakes, but: Instead, a completely new car on a completely new platform was created, with only four percent of all parts carried over, including the windshield wipers and the sunroof of the convertible, but that was about it.

Nevertheless, the proportions remained practically identical, even though the electric vehicle grew in all dimensions compared to the combustion engine version and drives completely differently: You get in, look at a completely new, elegant dashboard, whose cheekily mounted center screen, which is 10.25 inches in the top version, references the former mounted rear-view mirror. And because FCA chief designer Klaus Busse is simply a cool dude and likes to hide visual "Easter eggs" in his designs, he also included two original 500s in the door handle pockets and the city silhouette of Turin on the rubber mat of the central smartphone charging tray.

You can already tell, a lot has happened in terms of infotainment and connectivity. Now, you look at a high-resolution central screen and can even give abstract commands like "Hey Fiat, I'm cold" – to which the 500 responds: I have increased the temperature. Thank you! Playing radio stations on demand works immediately, but turning them off does not, as our request to "turn off the radio" was simply ignored by the Italian and it responded with "cancelled."

Not really economical for a small car

However, this did not dampen the driving fun, which is still present even in the extra frugal Sherpa version. You can get around quickly even in nasty city traffic and keep consumption well under 15 kWh/100 km, while on country roads at faster speeds it can be 16 to 17 kWh, and on the autobahn, like all EVs, consumption can increase significantly. Then, the 500 draws significantly more than 18 kWh/100 km – as if you were devouring a whole box of Mon Cheri in one go. In the end, we landed at 15.5 kWh/100 km on the approximately 40-kilometer route. This means the 500 isn't really economical, which is generally a phenomenon of electric mobility: Here, 400-PS-plus rockets like Tesla's Model 3 are much closer to and sometimes even lower than compacts like the e-Corsa or VW ID.3. This is very different from combustion engines.

And so we roam through and around Frankfurt with the top down despite nasty outside temperatures and enjoy the high quality and nice ambiance of the electric 500, which, however, still retains a few typical quirks, because: As tall drivers, we still sit "on" and not "in" the 500, because, once again, the seat is mounted (too) high. This is a fate shared by many Italian cars, which always costs a bit of fun and sportiness. And when we discovered the volume control for the radio at the bottom of the center console next to the drive mode switch, it reminded us of Alfa Romeo's ideas to place switches for the electric window openers (Alfetta) or the button for the handleless trunk lid (159 SW) in the roof(!). The switches for the temperature and fan speeds are blind-operable rocker switches (up to increase, down to decrease).

Huge Leap in Infotainment

So you can find your way around well, even if the infotainment still has some blurriness because "hey Fiat" does not execute all commands as you might have thought. But that is complaining on a high level, because the leap from Ucoonect 4 to 5 is huge. Just like the driving assistants, where the new 500 clearly stands above all other Minis.

In curves, the 500 shows decent speed and turns into them wonderfully thanks to almost ideal weight distribution, without pushing over the front wheels – that happens very late and then the ESP catches it with comparatively subtle regulation. We were somewhat puzzled in this context by the somewhat wooden-bumpy suspension, similar to what we experienced with the Opel Corsa-e and the Mini Cooper SE, both of which were "retrofitted" with electrification after being combustion engines. And here, trying to compensate for the heavy additional central weight of the battery with a certain "stiffness". This is surprising because the "new 500", like the Honda e, was designed to be electric from the outset, but you don't notice it at all with the Honda.

One-Pedal Feeling in "Sherpa" Mode

Fiat offers three driving modes: “Normal”, “Range” and “Sherpa”, with the latter noticeably scaling down performance and air conditioning, giving you practically a one-pedal feeling, with the little Italian recuperating so strongly that it can practically be driven without a brake pedal. Nevertheless, the Sherpa mode is still quick enough to get around city centers. And you can appreciate the successful design, the clean workmanship with high-quality haptics, and the many little "Easter eggs" that the design team around Klaus Busse has hidden in the new 500 – especially since no detail seems overdone and the new 500, like its predecessor, doesn't carry around an extra line.

A word on charging times: It takes 35 minutes at an 80 kW DC fast charger to charge from zero to eighty percent. At a household socket, it takes 15 hours and 15 minutes to go from zero to one hundred percent, and at the 11 kW wall box, Fiat quotes four hours and 15 minutes for a zero-to-one-hundred charge.

The base starts at a reasonable price, then Fiat steps it up

When it comes to prices, it's not as bad as feared with the fully loaded "La Prima," which is offered as a convertible for 37,900 euros gross, which is just under 32,000 euros net. The base model "Action" with a small 23.2 kWh battery, on the other hand, starts at 23,560 euros gross, which is just under 19,800 euros net - and that's all before deducting subsidies. Need the large 42 kWh battery? The "Passion" starts at 27,560 euros, which is just under 23,160 euros net. After deducting subsidies, the electric "Piemont cherry" will then cost barely more than the combustion engine version, which should greatly aid the spread of the electric 500.

What does that mean?

Fiat has kept the new 500 visually very close to its predecessor but completely revamped it technically. This means that the electric version is also likely to be a long-term success - just like Mon Cheri with the Piemont cherry.