Tiny tiddler
There’s a battle royale at the lower end of the electric vehicle (EV) market, with Chinese brands BYD, MG and GWM duking it out for cheapest EV.
One might expect Australia’s smallest EV, the diminutive Fiat 500e, to also be a cut-price candidate but the Italian hatch flips a cheeky middle finger to these rivals with its bold $52,500 price tag for the singular La Prima variant.
In true Italian style, the 500e is a car for the heart not the head, with its cute-as-a-button styling overshadowing such pragmatic matters as its small 47kWh battery, modest 87kW/220Nm outputs and limited 311km range. These would be a deal breaker ordinarily, but the 500e’s charms overcome all objections, leaving drivers grinning after a stint behind its thick-rimmed, stitched-leather steering wheel.
Fiat’s designers have done a masterful job of exterior styling, with the headlights and indicators forming a distinctive and cute face. The deft design continues inside the light, airy cabin, where the judicious use of white artificial leather on our test car lightened the ambience. Other touches include a woven fabric on the upper dash and a crisply rendered digital dash that offers multiple scrollable view options.
A low centre of gravity and short wheelbase endow the 500e with kart-like dynamics, and it feels particularly spritely off the mark, despite the stopwatch showing a leisurely 9.0 seconds for the 0-100 sprint.
For more, visit the Fiat website.