Tom's Guide's Mike Prospero drove the 2024 Fiat 500e for a week to see just how good is the company's second attempt at an EV. It's one of the smallest EVs around, and one of the less expensive models, too, but its range and storage are on the skimpy side. Could this be the ideal EV for city and local commuters?
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00:00I don't have to drive a lot, but I still need a car for getting around town to pick up groceries
00:04and my kid from school. That's why something like the Fiat 500e caught my attention.
00:09This is one of the smallest and cheapest EVs around.
00:17I've been driving this car for a week. I've taken it into New York City from
00:21suburbs of New Jersey and back, and I've only needed to recharge it once.
00:25Right now, I've got about 95 miles, and that's more than enough if all you're doing is going
00:30to the grocery store and back a couple times a week. It's motor here. It's a 118 horsepower,
00:36producing about 162 foot-pounds of torque. Not the biggest motor by any stretch of the
00:41imagination, but because this car is so small, it's actually very peppy on the highway.
00:47I'm driving over cobblestones right now, which isn't the smoothest in the world,
00:51but the Fiat handles them pretty well. It has smaller tires than a typical car, about 17 inches,
00:57so you do feel potholes a little bit more, but otherwise, it's a fairly smooth ride.
01:04One thing I like about the Fiat 500e is that there's manual controls for things.
01:09All of the environmental controls are laid out in a row right in front of me here,
01:13so you can sort of reach things by feel and not have to worry about, you know,
01:16going to the touchscreen and finding stuff. You can, of course, do things on the touchscreen,
01:21but it's nice to have physical controls in the backup. One of the things I really like about the
01:26Fiat 500e is a little shelf that's right underneath the dashboard here, and you can slot your phone in
01:32there, and it'll automatically recharge your phone if you have wireless charging. It's a little feature,
01:37but it's a handy one. The 500e has a large but not overwhelming 10-inch touchscreen,
01:43which lets you control everything fairly easily. It has, you know, CarPlay if you have
01:48iPhone or Android Auto, and there's also media controls, you know, for a Sirius
01:55satellite radio. You can control the climate here, and there's also navigation.
02:02The drive controls for the 500e are also pretty straightforward. You just have four buttons here
02:07right in front of the dashboard for park, reverse, neutral, and drive. One of the other major
02:12considerations with the Fiat 500e is its range. This car is only rated for about 139 miles on a
02:19full charge. I was able to get it to maybe about 140-ish, 149, but it is something you consider,
02:27especially if you take a lot of longer trips. The 500e's charging port is in sort of a traditional
02:34spot where you'd usually find a place to refill a gas car. Pop it open, though, and you have
02:40the plugs to recharge the car here, and there's also a nice little status symbol on the side
02:45that lets you know just how full the car is. Like all Fiat 500s, this is a small car. I'm about six
02:52feet tall, and as you can see, I can easily get over the top of it. If you're sitting in the front
02:58seat of the Fiat 500e, you'll find plenty of leg room, but it's a different case if you're sitting
03:02in the back. I'm going to sneak it and slide in here and close it up. The front seat is moved
03:10almost all the way forward, and I still feel a little claustrophobic. It's pretty tight for me.
03:16Of course, one of the drawbacks to having such a small car is that there's limited storage space.
03:21Unlike some larger EVs, there's no frunk for the Fiat 500e. You've got room for maybe two carry-on
03:27suitcases, but not much more. Back seats do fold down, but if you're doing a large Costco run,
03:34you'll probably need a larger car. When it comes to customizing the 500e, you're fairly limited in
03:46your choices. Fiat offers the car in white, red, black, and sort of a mist gray, but there's not
03:52much more you can configure in terms of, like, motor, for example, or tires, or trim packages.
03:57As you can see, it has a nice, you know, 500 styling logo on the front here. Nice attractive
04:02headlights, too, that were plenty bright at night, and you can adjust them, obviously. It has a nice
04:08red, white, and green of the Italian flag here because, after all, this is an Italian car.
04:12The styling of the Fiat 500e is simple but elegant. I do like on the seats here, it has the Fiat logo
04:19stitched into it. There's a nice sort of fabric dashboard here. Nothing feels cheap, nothing feels
04:25overly ostentatious on it. So that's a look at the Fiat 500e. It is a fun little affordable EV. It starts
04:38at just $32,500, making it one of the least expensive EVs that you can afford. However, there are a few
04:44compromises at this price. For one thing, its small size, which is great for cities, also means you don't
04:50have a lot of storage space, and its range, about 139 miles, is small compared to most other EVs.
04:58But if all you need to do is drive around the city or around your town for groceries and things like
05:03that, then this could be a great little fun electric car for you. What do you think about the Fiat 500e?
05:09Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and be sure to follow us on Instagram,
05:13TikTok, and other social media sites. For Tom's Guide, this is Mike Cosgrove.