Have you ever had a plain T-shirt just not quite feel right? It’s easy to assume that everyone shopping for an EV would be happy commuting in a Chevrolet Equinox EV or a Volkswagen ID.4 but sometimes, practical concerns like long range and being able to benefit from 150 kW DC fast chargers aren’t top priorities. After all, not every car suits everyone. Sometimes it’s just about feeling good, and the 2024 Fiat 500e understands that mission.
See, if car-buying were purely rational, we’d pretty much all be driving Priuses and hybrid Mavericks and minivans and whatnot, but when you’re spending a significant chunk of your paycheck on something, you might want something different. The new Fiat 500e is certainly different, and wonderfully irrational in the North American landscape, but is it good? Well, let’s find out.
[Full disclosure: Fiat brought a 500e to Canadian Car of the Year testing, so logically, I needed to have a go. Twice. Travel to and from the event was provided by me, juice in the 500e’s battery pack and accommodations were provided by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada, of which I’m a dues-paying member.]
The Basics
As-tested price: $34,095 ($42,190 Canadian).
Battery pack: 42 kWh NMC lithium-ion battery pack.
Motor: Single 118-horsepower front motor.
Range: 141 miles (227 km).
Peak DC fast charging speed: 85 kW.
Curb weight: 2,952 pounds (1,339 kg).
Why Does It Exist?
While the Fiat 500 isn’t an immensely popular car in America, it is popular in the rest of the world, and going all-electric really just felt like the next logical step for the model. Of course, since the Fiat brand has presence in America, and since Stellantis needs EVs on its plate, it’s come here, a retro-cool electric car in the underpopulated subcompact segment.
How Does It Look?
If you liked the way the reborn Fiat 500 looked, chances are you’re going to love its sequel. It’s hard to believe that 17 years ago, the cute city car throwback that felt properly small in all the ways the second reborn Mini didn’t was revealed to the public. Needless to say, manufacturing and tech has come a long way since the days of the Blackberry, so everything’s just been smartened up on the 500e.
It starts with more complex surfacing that adds depth to the styling without trying too hard. There’s just the right amount of push and pull to the lower doors now to break up the sheetmetal without resorting to the hard character line the old car used. Likewise, semi-circular headlights with daytime running light elements placed in the hood and ring-like indicators thoroughly modernize the forward lighting. Speaking of modernity, I’m a big fan of the tricolore winglets on either fender, but the electronic door handles are probably unnecessary.
Still, taste often requires restraint, and by keeping things subtle and cohesive, Fiat’s built a more modern cinquecento without falling into the trap of just scaling everything up at random, which would just make a caricature out of a good car. Even the badge is measured and economical, rolling a lowercase ‘e’ into the ‘500’ numeral.
How About The Inside?
Step inside the 2024 Fiat 500e, and you’ll find an interesting mix of upscale design touches and obvious whiffs of entry-level city car. For example, the ornate electronic door release buttons are set in a door car largely made out of hard plastic. As such, the pull to close the door feels rather cheap, but it’s offset by a cheery painted dashboard face, a well-damped rubberized roller for stereo volume, and surprisingly soft fabric upholstery. You wouldn’t expect the seats to be as comfortable as they are, but they’re closer to furniture than buckets, which feels apt for the shocking amount of space available for the front two occupants.
The partial center console gives you room to stretch out, huge windows really let in the breeze once they’re rolled down, and it’s just easy to take things a bit carefree with a coffee in the cupholder and upbeat tunes on the stereo. Oh, and despite the 500e’s stubby sub-12-f0ot length, space in the back isn’t as tight as you may expect. I’m about average height for a guy, and I was able to sit behind my own driving position without my knees hitting the seat structure.
How Does It Drive?
The driving experience of the Fiat 500e is dominated by one thing, and it certainly isn’t torque. It’s actually weight, or rather, the relative restraint of it all. See, rather than try to cram a big 65 kWh battery pack in the 500e, Fiat’s gone with 42 kWh of energy-dense NMC cells, and the result is a curb weight that does an alright impression of seeming subcompact in 2024. Hey, 46 fewer pounds than a Civic Si isn’t world-changing, but it means a lot here. That’s because this electric car doesn’t drive like an electric car past the initial hit of tire-torturing torque. The right-now Jack Russell Terrier immediacy of the steering, the jaunty demeanor of the suspension over pockmarked roads, you can actually feel the relative lightness of the car all the time. There’s still noticeably body roll and you can only really push the chassis so far, but there’s an inherent nimbleness to the 500e that feels like a breath of fresh air.
Sure, 118 horsepower and 162 lb.-ft. of torque mean it isn’t super quick, but acceleration is actually quite fine. It’s the same deal with using drum brakes in the rear, it still stops exactly how you’d expect a regular car to. What matters is that despite little in the way of steering feel, it’s fun in the corners, and fun is fun to have. The 500e is also hilariously easy to park for a modern car, thanks in part to superb visibility, but also in part to a footprint the size of a Sperry.
Does It Have The Electronic Crap I Want?
For the most part, yeah. Sure, you won’t find hands-free Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems or cooled seats here, but you get a digital gauge cluster, a 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, USB-A and USB-C ports, heated front seats, and a wireless smartphone charger, all as standard equipment. Best of all, the in-cabin tech all works as you’d expect and looks sharp. Job well done there.
As for charging, while 85 kW isn’t an enormous peak speed, a 42 kWh pack isn’t an enormous battery. Add in the fact that the 500e uses the common CCS connector, and supports 11 kW Level 2 charging, and it should be fine for jolt-and-bolt stops at public charging stations around the city.
Three Things To Know About The 2024 Fiat 500e
- It feels surprisingly light.
- It’s more spacious and comfortable than you’d think.
- Only 141 miles of range, though.
Does It Fulfill Its Purpose?
Yeah. Look, the 2024 Fiat 500e was never going to be the affordable long-range EV that everyone’s clamoring for. Instead, it’s a modest, measured distillation of fun that just happens to have no tailpipe emissions. It can make a cold, damp, overcast autumnal day feel bright and sunny as you view the road through a rose-tinted windscreen. Simply put, it’s hard not to feel good driving a 500e, and its low-end pricing lets the more hopeless romantics among us it also lets you dream in other ways too.
For a brand new electric car, this thing’s pretty cheap, which means that for road trips, you can acquire something ridiculous. Something heavily depreciated with considerable performance and maintenance bills. Maybe an S-Class. Maybe a Quattroporte. Maybe an Alpina B7. Maybe even a cheap Porsche or a Corvette or a 500SL. Something worth fantasizing about. The Fiat 500e isn’t for practical people, but that’s part of what makes it great. Not only does it have character, it’s just liveable enough to be usable every day, just impractical enough to make your weekend car that much more special, and just so damn cheerful.
What’s The Punctum Of The 2024 Fiat 500e?
Lovers, dreamers, and parallel parkers, your EV is here.
(Photo credits: Thomas Hundal)
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I don’t care about the range. I care about it being 35000! dollars to start for such an impractical/unusable car…. For a cheap enough lease, I could be interested, but even then I bet insurance will be a big problem.
It’s basically just a city car for families that can afford more than one car. So targeted at wealthy yuppies and rich kids / mums whose kids have fled the nest. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I can’t imagine many people buying these as their primary mode of transport, unless they never plan to leave the city.
Do these “city cars” ever see much success outside Europe where they may be incentivized in some way (displacement taxes, city congestion charges, etc.)?
At least cars like Mercedes’ Toyota iQ were somewhat inexpensive for their day (though arguably not enough compared to a Corolla/Yaris). And if you do take it out of the city, you can refuel easily enough.
This is a $40k car you would never want to take out of the city because of the range + time/availability of charging. And while it may have better driving dynamics than a Chevy Bolt, it is not a sports car. It is too expensive to just be a transportation appliance.
So who is it for? A rich person buying a car for their 16 year old that won’t go too far? Someone who really never leave the city and thinks Fiats are awesome?
Honesly I love them. I don’t buy new cars, and I am a cheapskate who has only once spent over $25k on a car and immediately regretted it, but I was trying to convince myself to go new for a bit and the short list was a Bolt, a Prius Prime (the current, good looking generation, not the old ugly ones) and this. This would be a heck of a lot more fun, and my wife has the minivan, so a small car is perfect for me and I rarely need to cart kids around, but when I do this would have worked. I ended up going NA Miata because I just don’t like new or expensive cars, but I do very thoroughly enjoy these things
I’m not against the idea of a EV for commuting, but I’m not spending $40k on it. When Bolts were $20-25k, they had my attention. $40k, I’m buying a Prius Prime.
Yeah see this is just a different car. People don’t cross shop a Versa and a Mini, the one is an appliance, the other is fun. This is the fun one, bolts are appliances. I would rather have the fun car.
Appreciated this review. Now to figure out the best way to bring one home…
I don’t care about the range, it’s fine for what the 500 is great anyho, city traffic/commuting. And with home charging it’s no issue. For roadtripping it’s got bigger problems than range, like non-existent boot space and bad seats, not to mention tyre noise.
However for it’s intended purpose I think it’s about 5-10k too expensive. For second car usecase as lightly used it’s fantastic and I think ideal EV application. Also as it’s not that heavy, should be easy on tyres too.
I’d be cool with the 227 kms of range if it was a cost-friendly city car. I very rarely use more than 100 kms of range at a time on my current car, so it would be fine. But to pay $42k for that? Yikes. Not a chance.
I like this. For a city car it would be great. But there is the silverback in the corner pounding out the 5th, roll the dice or walk away. Stellantis you wayward b*$&@.
This looks like fun but still pricey. Thankfully you can find last gen 500es in the $5-8k range if you want an electric runabout for short trips.
There was a time they ran $4-5k before COVID – can’t wait for these to reach that point.
At $34K, I AM going to care about the range.
If I were simply driving it to review for The Autopian, maybe I wouldn’t care so much.
An EV will be an extra vehicle for me and my family. Not a replacement, even for my 22-year old car, nor an only car.
That said, the Kart racers at the local indoor track are plenty fun. Small fee. Way smaller than $34K and hoping Stellantis didn’t screw it up and lock me out of my car due to a water leak.
But I mean how often do you drive your 22 year old car more than this? Other than spirited drives out in the countryside in the Miata, I have never driven it over 100 miles in a day, and this isn’t something I would likely find myself wanting to go canyon carving in, so it would fit my needs well. If I wasn’t a cheapskate I would have one of these because it’s practical for my needs, and it’s fun. And those are my biggest priorities. I daily a freaking Miata for heaven’s sake, this would be more practical that that is haha.
Eh, I don’t daily anything anymore. It is what is preventing me from buying a driveway doorstop. Well, that and the overuse of electronics and nannyness in today’s cars.
Fair. Yeah I love the idea of many new cars, but then I get in them and never even want to drive them because they are too computerized. Hence why I have driven 90s cars for the majority of my life.
I shuttle cars in my spare time for a dealership chain so i get to see what happens to EVs in the real world. 140 marketing miles is ~100 in the real world when you have to do things like use the heat/AC, drive on the freeway, etc.
This thing is great for people who are bad at math and finance.
100 miles is fine for a second car in a household that gets used for errands or a reasonable commute. I’d say it’s the price rather than the range that makes it less than compelling. That ends up being a pretty substantial premium for “fun” vs other options unless there end up being cheap lease options.
That is a weird combo. With a battery pack that small, I don’t know why you would every try to charge it in any way except Level 2. I guess if you street parked and all you ever did was DCFS.
low-end pricing?
Are these substantially cheaper in Canada? Because they’re like $37,000 in the US. I love a tiny car but that’s mid range GTI money. I haven’t even tried to justify the range limitations because, like the ID BUZZ, the price is ridiculous for what it is.
OR, you could just buy a used Bolt for <1/3 the price, have mechanical door handles and over 200HP.
Yep, Bolts remain a top-notch deal.
And also a 66kwh battery and 250 mile range. Did that in February, haven’t regretted it for even a moment.
Me too, so severely underrated at the moment.
I just turned over 5 years with a Bolt as my only car. It is the best daily driver I have ever had.
Will be enjoying my ’19 for many years to come. And I’ve road-tripped it multiple times.
And radiant heat.
The weird “bedroom eyes” eyelid headlights aren’t doing it for me.
Those ain’t “bedroom” eyes:
https://images.pushsquare.com/6e7e2d3fe8307/five-nights-at-freddys-ps5.original.jpg
I could use an electric commuter, but my deal-o-meter says 141 miles = $14,100, or they can keep it.
I expect 2 disposable commuter crapcans for this price
Good Lord. It’s still $35K?
You can get some pretty wacky lease deals on them.
I refuse to accept 3000lbs as the new ‘light weight’
Only in America.
There sure are a lot of Mopar “M”s under that hood. They told me that Fiat took over Chrysler, but is it the other way around?
It looks sleepy. I suppose the DRL upper half of the circle would show up more on a different body color.
The grill grin looks like a serial killer intent on skinning you. With those hooded eyes, the whole face is as if he just realized that he roofied himself, not you.
He’s just gearing up to rip your wallet out of your pants.
“My wallet’s gone!
MY WALLET’S GONE!!!”
Maybe for others, but if things went a different way, I’d probably be rocking a 500e or a Leaf. I don’t have any need for ICE’s, or hybrids. Or a truck for that matter.
If I could, I’d buy the 500e. Only thing that gives me pause is the electric door handles, and that reason is a bit self explanatory.
Agreed. How hard is it to keep some old-school mechanical things on a car that will last nearly forever, versus the electronic alternative that depends not only on itself working but a lot of other parts of the car working?
And, where is the aftermarket for replacing electronics with simple mechanical devices?
If they wanted to save money on door handles, they could’ve made a unit similar but smaller than what they used for the Promaster City. That uses a handle that co-acts as the lock/unlock button & as the little lock rod many a vehicle uses.
It’s the smartest thing I think Fiat ever developed was that handle combo.
What’s wrong w/ mechanical door handles. On a Corvette, where the button is hidden in a little niche, electrical is “ok”, but a little crap can, mechanical is better. Flat battery or no, you can still get in. A friend’s trailblazer had an electrical button for the tailgate, I thought it totally unnecessary.
My F150 has an electrical release for the tailgate. While I think remotely opening the tailgate is a cute party trick, you still have to push the button on the fob. It’s not like you can wave your foot under the bumper at a rear corner and have it open while your arms are full. And Ford didn’t take advantage of the electrical operation and hide the backup camera under the blue oval to keep it clean and also use the cover to unlatch the tailgate like a GTI does. So, an unnecessarily complicated tailgate w/ no operational advantages over the poverty-spec mechanical tailgate latch & bezel.
I personally blame Musk.
Currently working a lease deal on one of these….With discounts and rebates it’s at 299 down and 299 a month. I’m really close to pulling the trigger.
If it fits your needs, that seems like a great deal, especially when you factor in some fuel savings and basically no maintenance costs too. Check the insurance though. I’ve found with my PHEV’s that they can be a bit pricier than their ICE equivalents.
My wife’s Equinox EV came out to about $175 more per 6 months than a gas one (which makes sense for full coverage because of the higher vehicle value, but it worth noting).
More expensive vehicle to start with, but if someone takes you out in a year, the payout will likely be less than the payoff of the lease, based on the “market value” of the highly depreciated resale value of an electric vehicle.
Well, here’s the thing: I can make a use case for it, sure. But why lease this when it’s very possible that I could score a Blazer EV or maybe a Charger for not a lot more?
Santa Monica Fiat’s lease deal is $191 a month. HOWEVER 42 months, $2999 down and this is the tricky part, you get charged for every mile over 17,500.
You know what is even more fun and a LOT cheaper? A 500 Abarth with it’s howling 1.4 Turbo with 160hp and preferably a manual transmission to keep things involving.
This fascination with overpriced electric golf carts baffles me.
This…
friend of mine recently bought an Abarth, and after having driven it, yeah those are the way to go. I barely fit at 6’0″ and the shifter and clutch are far from the best I’ve driven, but for well under a third the price of a new 500e, it’s an absolute riot. You don’t feel bad about the fisher price plastics when you picked the car up for 8k and can tripod around turns around town at legal speeds.
I didn’t mind the crap plastics when I paid $19K for one brand new in 2013. It’s a cheap car. And the second most fun car I have ever owned after my Spitfire. Unfortunately, I let the siren call of doing Euro delivery again for an M235i overcome me and I sold it. A car nearly 3X the price and about half the entertainment value.
You’ll care about the price though
$34k USD, and not 7500 Tax credit eligible. That’s an incredibly tough sell regardless of fun factor, with that little range and size.
In 3 years when these are $12k they will actually be extremely compelling, at least assuming the batteries don’t degrade as badly as the prior 500e.
That’s not even taking into the account the high overlap between people who live places where city cars make sense and people who can’t charge an EV at home.
At $35k you’ve gotta really want one of these, at least in most parts of the country. If you’re somewhere real dense I could see the range being a non-issue and the size being a major plus (provided you actually have somewhere to charge it).
That’s the tricky part, if you’ve got somewhere to charge it, you’ve undoubtedly got enough space in that spot for something at least the size of a Chevy Bolt, which while only available used, has nearly double the range, back seats, loads more cargo volume, at half the price used once used EV tax credit is applied, and is still plenty small for cities.
The only place the 500e makes sense is in very old European cities were there is genuinely no space for cars larger than this, and allegedly it does sell well in those areas. I can’t imagine that’s a large enough market to recoup development costs though.
“you’re somewhere real dense”
…or you’re just really dense…
(Not you specifically, obviously…this joke was just too good not to make it)
I’d be shocked if anyone has actually bought one of these outright. They make much more sense as a lease.
Personally I don’t lease anything. I would have bought at least one of these outright if it had mechanical door handles, even with the dying charging standard.
You know why I’m not buying one?
1.) Electric external door handles
2.) It lacks NACS, which is set to be the standard before 2030, relegating it to in town use with home charging.
Honey, you’re not buying one because you can only afford to fantasize about buying one.
It’s ok, you don’t need to justify, plenty of us in this position, most of us I would even say, but you also don’t need to find excuses and write them, every week, for not buying any other new car.
Please stop, it’s been tooooo much.
I was planning to buy 2-3 of them (to keep 1-2 in storage as I’m not buying any new cars made after 2026-2028 due to mandatory self driving regs set to kick in after that time), then I figured out they had electric door handles (from a European reviewer who does mostly silent car reviews). While I hoped they would have mechanical exterior door handles for the US models I doubted it would be the case and I was sadly right,
I will continue to rant against electric door handles, I’d sooner forego doors than forego mechanical door handles (which I very well may do for the new Jeep Recon).
As far as what I can afford is concerned, lets just say I don’t need to get a loan for anything I’d want ever and I generally have a hatred for loans.
But since you seem sure enough to make the claim I lack the funds to afford a new 500e, why don’t you confirm it via a PI and have them dig into who I am and what I have at my disposal, while you won’t be correct, you’ll learn enough to make accurate claims against me.
Just looking for the logic behind your weekly claims about not buying that car for that reason, and the week before that other car, for that other reason, and every ucking week, another car for another reason. It shows man, it shows !
But you do you, I’m (not) in a hurry to read about the next car you’re not going to buy, for whatever other excuse.
Logic is that I like the product quite a lot, but because of one thing that isn’t necessary for it to function but is a dealbreaker for me I won’t buy it, and that makes me sad and a bit miffed.
Take your favorite dessert for example, I don’t know what it is, but I’m almost certain that if I added blue cheese on top of and in it you wouldn’t want to eat it, even though without the blue cheese it is your favorite.
I doubt there is anyone in the world who refused to buy a car because it had mechanical door handles instead of electric ones, but there are a lot of people who refused to buy a car because it had electric door handles instead of mechanical ones. Yet Fiat felt the need to make the door handles electric likely because someone of a technophilic persuasion who had final say over the door handles made it so.
How much profit do you make as an automaker on a vehicle you don’t sell?
None.
Fiat is stalling production of the 500e due to a lack of demand, even in Europe.
Hell, the 500e has mechanical interior door handle backups FFS, how much would it have cost them to beef it up and adding an exterior door handle that utilizes the same mechanism so that it would work like car door handles have worked for as long as car doors have existed?
It’s ok, you don’t need to write an essay on why you’re not going to buy this car, we don’t care.
You also don’t need to do that for the next new car they talk about that you are not going to buy either.
You inquired as to the logic, I wrote it down for you in a reply.
Haha you misread…
…your weekly claims
Which I stated my logic for via analogy that you can understand and empathize with.
I have to say something…
I don’t know why this person is even debating w/ you…
you should be able to post what you want when you want since this is a car COMMUNITY…
I just happen to also agree w/ you that yeah, some new cars are nice and all…but I pretty much don’t like any new cars due to all the electric BS/nannies/screens…
also no real colors, a sea of SUV/CUV blobs, etc
I’m way more into interesting cars, cars w/ great design like classic cars which I really want to get into more…so just know that you are welcome here; you have a voice and should be able to be heard…
The Autopian is the best!