Fiat 500 electric - long-term review

Having finally managed to pry the keys to the baby Fiat from Vijay’s hands, things didn’t start off brilliantly between us. A couple of range-testing 100-mile-plus journeys in cold weather meant motorway miles were spent trying to limit use of the heater and demister to maximise range. Not ideal for forward visibility. As my esteemed colleague has already mentioned, the 500’s battery life drops massively at the national speed limit, but on my first trip outside the safety of the M25 I decided to try and avoid the motorway services charge as I would a services fill-up in a combustion-engined car. I’m not made of money.

Another long trip the next day meant I’d need a full tank of electricity in the morning, but isn’t that the beauty of running an EV? Fill the tank whilst you sleep and all that?

Well, I can now safely report that that’s not quite the case if you haven’t got off-street parking. “I’ll limp home in Sherpa mode and use the local lamppost Ubitricity chargers that are so prevalent in my part of Westminster,” I thought. I’ve used them before on all manner of test cars and they’re generally pretty good for a nighttime charge.

At 5.52kW they should fill the 42kWh batteried Fiat in roughly seven hours. Although I say they’re pretty good – when we first moved to the area all but one point in the surrounding streets was broken. A couple of emails with the details of each charger later and some were back up and running. Unfortunately, this time the Fiat failed to connect to every lamppost that wasn’t blocked by an inconsiderate (and completely within their rights because the spaces aren’t reserved for EVs) ICE driver. To make matters worse, Ubitricity took a £6 fee from my bank account on every failed attempt, though this was eventually refunded. Whether the issue was with the car or the charging network isn’t clear, but the end result meant the next day’s journey was split by doing half in the Fiat and then swapping into the long-term Golf R for the remainder in order to make a photoshoot on time.

Not an ideal start to my first attempt at living with an EV, and a strong advert for those who insist that you need a two-car garage if you’re to buy an electric runabout.

Then again, the combustion-engined 500 was never that happy leaving the confines of a city, and the EV is such a massive improvement that Fiat really should stop selling the ancient standard car.

Thanks to its electric powertrain, the little 500 also saved itself from a front-end prang this month. Turning right on a mini roundabout, a tatty old Mk1 Seat Alhambra carried straight on over directly in front of my path. Luckily the Fiat’s regenerative braking is so strong that I managed to miss the Seat despite not having enough time to hit the brake pedal. The only other takeaway from this episode? It’s really quite difficult to express road rage in a rose gold Fiat 500…

500 Nuggets

1. Massive 10.25-inch screen and a fairly modern infotainment system on our 500 Icon

2. This rather unresponsive 7.0-inch unit is the biggest you can get in the combustion-powered 500

3. Although check out what you get in the boggo 500 Action EV. Yep, that’s a smartphone holder

4. Sound great? It could be, but Fiat doesn’t reengineer it for the UK so your phone will face the passenger seat