FIAT 500 Electric 2022 owner review

Martin J drives a FIAT 500 Electric La Prima 42kWh 2022.

This is Martin’s second electric car, he’s owned the FIAT 500 1-2 years and drives 5,000-10,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 5,000-10,000 miles and he achieves 170 miles from a full charge.

Why did you choose the FIAT 500 Electric?

We wanted a second electric car to replace my wife’s 17-year old Prius and the smaller the better, as she rarely carries more than one passenger and often needs to park in the city centre. But she also makes occasional longer cross-country trips. We looked at the Kona (too big), the MINI Electric (too low with woeful range) and the 500. It was love at first sight. I mean, if this isn’t the cutest car on the market right now, I don’t know what is! More practically, the 500 is a ground-up EV design, unlike the Mini, with a range that makes longer journeys feasible with reasonably fast 85kW DC charging, as well as on-board 11kW AC charging.

Positives

There are so many reasons to love the Nuova 500. Here are the most compelling:

Style – it’s gorgeous. If anything, it looks a bit too much like the older, smaller petrol 500s but it carries off the iconic retro look without trying too hard.
Range & charging speed. For a tiny electric car, it has a useful range that makes cross-country journeys perfectly feasible.
Driving – it handles like the original MINI with quick steering, flat cornering and a firm but compliant ride. But with its wide track it’s also stable and well-planted at speed on the motorway.
Tech – depending on grade, the 500 comes with a full suite of driving assist features and a crisp 10.5 inch infotainment screen with excellent graphics.
Parking – although it’s bigger than the petrol 500, it still fits into tiny parking places and it has a very small turning circle. The rear view camera on higher grades is still useful, however.
Build quality – material quality and finish is excellent.

Negatives

Adorable though it is, the 500 is not quite perfect:

The translation of the design to RHD causes a few problems. In particular, space to rest the driver’s left foot is lacking.
the rear seats really are very small. It’s best to think of the 500 electric as a 2+2.
regeneration is very strong in the one-pedal Range mode but weak in Normal drive mode. It would be good to have more adjustability.
it’s expensive to buy. FIAT have been stingy with the specification on lower grades, so we exceeded our budget somewhat to get features like LED headlights and a reversing camera that really ought to be standard throughout the range.

Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?

We have experienced no significant issues. The infotainment system has occasionally behaved erratically but has reset itself. And the car occasionally displays road signs in kilometres instead of miles but then reverts back.

What are the standout technological features of the car?

Undoubtedly the standout feature of the nuova 500 is the packaging of a substantial 42kWh battery in such a small car. As more huge EV SUVs are launched every day, putting such a small ground-up EV into production was a bold move by FIAT.

Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about this electric car

It’s electric! Non-car people see it and at first glance assume it’s just another Panda-based 500. Perhaps FIAT could have made it look a bit more radical but my wife thinks it’s just fine as it is. The other group of people often surprised by it are BMW drivers, as the 500 leaves them behind at traffic lights but we’re all getting used to the instant peak torque of EVs.

What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?

The 500 is still new, so we’re not really thinking about replacing it. But it will be interesting to see what other electric city cars emerge in the next few years.

Home charging unit

We use an E.ON eBox, made by Innogy. It’s been completely reliable, it’s robust and well-designed.

Electricity supplier & tariff

We use Octopus Go, having recently transferred from E.ON. At first, we though that the 4 hour overnight charging window would not be enough for charging 2 EVs but it has been fine so far and very rarely have we needed to top up during peak hours.

What public charging networks would you recommend to others and why?

So far we have only used InstaVolt on occasional longer trips. They’ve been reliable but the parking spaces they’re in are often very small for wrestling a CCS cable.