Quick Drive with the Fiat 500 EV: Could This Small Car Return (Again)?

Fiat’s lineup in America has shrunk to only the 500X crossover, so there’s an opportunity for more.

Stellantis is still finding out how to resurrect the Fiat brand in the United States, where CEO Carlos Tavares believes the Italian compact vehicle manufacturer has a bright future. He believes that customers in North America, particularly in California, prefer a tiny car as a second or third vehicle.

After discontinuing other variants after the 2019 model year due to market failure, Fiat now only sells the 500X in the United States. However, a broader portfolio continues to sell in Europe, including the all-new, third-generation 500, which has introduced alongside the old second-generation 500 two years ago and was designed from the ground up as an EV.  In Europe, Fiat and Abarth will exclusively be electric by 2027, and some of those new EVs will eventually find their way to the United States.

So, while in Amsterdam for the announcement of Stellantis’ nine-year strategy plan called Dare Forward 2030, we took advantage of an opportunity to hop in an electric Fiat 500 that we don’t get here in America for a look at the car and its place in Fiat’s future.

Driving a Fiat 500 Spicy Red from Europe

The 500 we boarded was a fiery red car with a cloth top that could be removed. It’s unmistakably a descendant of the original Cinquecento, and it’s adorable as a button.

Inside, there was a lacquered red dash with very nice cloth seats, not just because of the “Fiat” pattern or the red piping and badging, but also because of the “Fiat” pattern and the red piping and badging. It was a limited-edition (Red) variant, with only the driver’s seat in red and the rest of the seats black. So elegantly Italian. The interior’s sparseness didn’t bother us, and the overwhelming usage of black plastic didn’t bother us either. It really made the red “500” in the center of the steering wheel stand out.

The Fiat 500 may be small, but it has plenty of headroom in the front seats, making them a terrific place to be. The little back seats, on the other hand, aren’t so great.  

We haven’t driven the old Fiat 500e in a while, as it debuted in the United States for the 2013 model year with a range that was too short for the American market. It came with a 24-kWh battery with an EPA-rated range of 84 miles. (The old 500e was a so-called “compliance car,” designed merely to meet local rules; comparable low-range, low-cost EVs have generally been replaced in the last decade by equally priced choices with better power, range, and size.) In comparison, the new third-generation 500 has a 62-kWh battery pack and a range of around 198 miles on the more liberal WLTP testing cycle.

Early second-generation 500s were not powerful even with a gasoline engine. They were powered by a 1.4-liter engine that produced only 101 horsepower and 98 lb-ft of torque. In our tests, it took 9.7 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph, and 17.2 seconds to complete the quarter-mile at 78.5 mph.  The old 500 was the most fun in tight bends or on a go-kart track (or MotorTrend’s figure-eight testing circuit) since it was light and nimble. The automobile was modified for the 2019 model year with a 135-hp, 150-lb-ft turbocharged version of the 1.4-liter engine, as well as more sporty Abarth performance variants.

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