The latest edition the Fiat 500e electric city hatch is being tipped to launch in Australia as early (or late) as the first half of 2023, potentially adding another much-needed lower-priced EV option to the straggling local market.
“We’re excited to launch [the 500e] next year,” a Fiat Australia spokesperson reportedly told drive.com.au on Tuesday – a statement The Driven was unable to confirm in time for publication.
And it’s probably about time, considering the electric version of the iconic Italian run-about was launched in the UK more than two years ago.
Indeed, Fiat’s head office just this week announced that it would remove all purely internal-combustion-engined models from sale in Europe from July of this year, now that all of its cars are available with electrified powertrains.
And it says the fully-electric New 500 – the first fully-electric Fiat designed from the ground up – is the currently the best-selling electric city car in 11 countries and the second best-selling electric car in any segment in Europe, behind only Tesla.
In the global release on Monday, Fiat said the 500e was continuing its journey that began in Europe, by moving into Brazil and Japan – no mention of Australia there, but let’s hope the sources at Fiat Australia know something we don’t.
As for the features of the new 500e, Fiat says the car provides a raft of best-in-class features such as Level 2 Autonomous Driving technologies (it calls this “Sherpa Mode”), two battery options (24kWh or 42kWh), an 87kW motor and a driving range of up to 320km miles (WLTP). The website also says it can fast-charge to just under 50km in 5 minutes.
On price, as Bridie Schmidt wrote here, in Four great and affordable electric vehicles that still are not available in Australia, the new 500 electric has a starting post-subsidy price of €20,790 in Germany (where it is selling like hot-cakes) putting it at an equivalent of $A30,774. Nice and cheap.