Fiat 500e Review

Pricing

The New 500 range is currently made up of three trim levels – RED, Icon and La Prima by Bocelli – and all come with the big battery. Both RED and Icon get a 10.25-inch touchscreen with sat nav, 16-inch alloys, keyless entry and start while the RED gets plenty of red trim and detailing. The posh La Prima by Bocelli adds LED headlights, 17-inch wheels and an upgraded JBL stereo system that's been 'enhanced' by Bocelli, apparently. 

Before Summer 2022, there was an entry-level Action model that came exclusively with the smaller 24kWh battery. That came with halogen headlights, 15-inch steel wheels, keyless go, rear parking sensors and a configurable 7-inch digital TFT colour screen in front of the driver.  The interior trim featured a black dashboard, while the seats – in Seaqual yarn – included a geometric chevron motif and silver-coloured stitching. Unfortunately, it's gone for now. 

One neat feature available on the 500 black button-free ‘pebble’ – a smart wearable key that can be carried in a pocket or bag, which communicates with the car automatically unlocking the doors when the pebble is close to the car and locking them again with a simple tap on the door handle. The ‘pebble’ is made of a special bio-based polycarbonate.

Running costs

The New Fiat 500 will be usefully cheaper to run than any petrol alternative. Insurance and servicing is yet to be confirmed, but given the efficiency of some 5.2miles/kWh (which is effectively saying that it does really high mpg, only in electric-speak) you’ll be paying under 4p per mile for electricity if you fill up at home. Use off-peak tariffs and you could reduce that still further to as little as 2p per mile. For context, a petrol car doing 40mpg will cost around 14p per mile, so you’re cutting fuel bills by up to 80%. 

Then there’s the free access to the London congestion zone, zero VED road tax and even cheaper parking in many busy city areas. Company car drivers, of course, are set for comically low costs given that there’s negligible Benefit in Kind car tax to pay on pure electric vehicles. You’ll very likely spend more on frothy coffee in the next three years than you will on company car tax, if you run any of the more affordable pure electric cars right now – New 500 included. That goes for 40% tax payers, too.