What the Fiat 500e electric car is like – Fiat 500 owners tell us

It’s fun to drive a car with modern features like lane guidance and automatic braking when pedestrians are detected – even better if it has a backup camera. But the Fiat 500e constantly warns you on the display that there is an “emergency vehicle” ahead (and makes a terrifyingly loud noise), which is unfortunately wrong 80% of the time. Don’t give yourself a heart attack!

The age-old problem of range and charging

The Fiat 500e has a range of about 150 miles, which is more than enough for my driving needs. I don’t commute, so most of my travels are leisure. I drove the 500e more than a normal week, and after about 53 miles over four days, the battery dropped from 96% to 41%. This is an issue when I need to cover long distances occasionally, like visiting my in-laws or going for a road trip.

I have a home in New York City with parking, so I am very blessed to be able to charge at home. However, the charger that Fiat included was just a little too short to reach the charging outlet at the back of my house. That being said, most people don’t have that luxury, so they’ll have to use a charging station. When I looked for charging stations near me, almost all of them were listed as “slow.” Thankfully, only one was listed as “fast.”

But before that, I was near WIRED’s Manhattan office earlier this week, looking for a place to park and charge my car while I sat in the office for two hours. The first lot I went to was full and I was turned away. The second lot I went to said it would cost $60 to charge and park for two hours, because in New York City, you have to pay for real estate as well as electricity. For $60 I was able to charge the battery from 41% to 77%. For comparison, I pay about $35 to fill up my Fiat 500 with gas every two weeks (it takes a few minutes).

find right Fast charging stations are important. There were plenty of stations available near my house (Thursday evening) and I saw many EV drivers hanging out in their cars or watching videos on their phones while they were charging. I pulled over, plugged it in, and about 20 minutes later I had 20% charge. It cost about $4. You can get used to it. that.

I didn’t have a chance to test drive the Fiat 500e on a long-distance trip, but I would have to be a bit more careful about finding fast chargers along the route and timing my 30-minute charge so that it coincides with my lunch or bathroom break. It’s a more complicated undertaking, and if you take a lot of long-distance trips (which I don’t often), this would probably be my biggest hesitation in buying an EV.

Let’s talk about money

When I was researching cars to buy, I frequently saw the Fiat initials “Fix It Again Tony.” It seems that these cars have had a bad reputation for reliability and maintenance over the years. The 500 I bought was inspected, but the previous owner did I heard the car door handle broke and had to be replaced. I’ve never heard of a car door handle breaking, but apparently it’s a common problem among Fiats. I can’t say much about the reliability of the Fiat 500e in the US, but hopefully it’s improving.

The problem is its $32,500 starting price (the model I tested starts at $36,000), and there are plenty of EV options with more space and longer range, including the Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona Electric, and Tesla Model 3.

But if you small When it comes to cars, there aren’t many options in the US, except for the new Mini Cooper SE, which starts at $30,900. I’m always jealous when I see people in the UK enjoying small, affordable electric cars; we need some in the UK. (I’d absolutely love to drive a Microlino.)

The Fiat 500e is too expensive, but the options for small electric cars, especially great looking ones, are scarce in the US. The Fiat 500e is just that. I would definitely choose it over a gasoline car, but unfortunately it’s out of my budget. And it doesn’t come in yellow (sigh!). If Fiat could solve these two problems, I’d be happy to open up my wallet.