When it comes to reading a review of a potential Company Car in a heavy vehicle publication then you couldn’t get anything more incongruous than a review of Fiat’s sexy little Abarth 500e, an electric mini car that it , let’s face it no prime mover.
However that it what this section is all about, its about your choice of company car, which may be a zippy electric mini car to counter a behemoth truck around town.
The Abarth 500e is a terrific, little fun city car that would make the daily commute to the yard a fun proposition and a huge counterpoint to a big ute or pick up or even a heavy and ‘lacking fun’ SUV.
The Abarth 500e is compromised sure, but it is also a charming, fun-filled Italian urban racer, albeit with a limited range, a relatively high cost and better equipped and specced opponents in the market.
With a list price starting at just under $60k the 500e is no cheap little urban runabout. It is a a fashion statement as much as a feel good factor and you have to be prepared to pay for that if you really want one.
It’s no use comparing it with any other electric car on the market because there is nothing else like it on the road.
Part of it is a nostalgia trip, taking the driver back to those smaller but charming Fiat 500s of yore, part of it is its unique look and styling and the other part is the zero emission battery electric driveline and the torque , nippy performance it delivers. The rest makes not a lot of sense, but who said cars of passion have to make sense?
Fiat can date the ‘Cinquecento’ or 500 back to pre WW2 and the link with the Abarth tuning house, which the Italian company now owns, back to just after the second World War.
Today’s 500 is very different to those early models and the styling that goes along with the performance bits that the Abarth name plate delivers, is also very different these days.
Fiat discontinued the ICE powered versions of the 500 around the middle of 2024 so these days it’s battery electric or battery electric!
Let’s face it, the 500e Abarth is a tiny little machine that doesn’t carry a lot of weight, so in that regard it doesn’t need much grunt and it doesn’t have a lot, with just 113kW of power and an ample 235Nm of torque. This is supplied to the ground through the front wheels, just like the trad 500s of old.
Range is a also a little compromised with just 253km claimed in the factory specs, with the little car using a 400 volt electric design, so it is a very definitely a city commuter car not something you’ll drive from Melbourne to Sydney. Catch the plane and park at the airport, we would advise.
It is however, light, tipping the scales at 1410kg and that makes it nippy and fun to drive, particularly when darting in and out of traffic.
Otherwise, identical standard features across the pair include:
Abarth specific front and rear fascias and sideskirts, Full LED exterior lighting, ridiculous 18-inch alloy wheels, four-wheel disc brakes that stop like a ‘hand of God’ has reached down and grabbed the car, an even more ridiculous AVAS sound generator that produces a fake exhaust noise and a whole lot of other fascinating features.
Inside creature comforts include electric door latching, luxury Alcantara and faux leather-trimmed interior, a 7.0-inch TFT colour driver’s screen and a 10.25-inch Uconnect-format touchscreen media, with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and a fabulous JBL audio.
There is also inductive phone charging, a climate control air con system, a glass roof with fabric trim, a rear view camera and 360-degree parking sensors and thankfully passive not active cruise control
Unfortunately with batteries under the floor and very little added room anywhere, there is no spare tyre. Instead you get a tyre repair kit which given the state of our roads, even the urban ones, is not great for a car with 18 inch alloys and low profile tyres. So best of luck if you do get a puncture.
The Abarth 500e is an absolute blast to drive with precise handling a tiny footprint on the road, with a wheel at each corner, steering like an electronic guided missile and those brakes we mentioned earlier that pull you up amazingly.
But what an absolute hoot the Abarth 500e is to drive, with gusto on a backroad, with the front-drive format it was developed on.
There is a choice of three three drive modes, including Tourismo, Scorpion Street and Scorpion Track, with the last two both delivering full power, with Track mode differing in that it defeats heavy-regenerative one-pedal mode. The mild Tourismo mode reduces throttle response while delivering one-pedal regen braking.
I’m not sure about the noise/ exhaust generator, it all seems a bit of a lie as far as we are concerned and not sure that the loud and annoying tone adds anything to the package that the crisp electric torque and lack of sound doesn’t deliver better, but that is subjective.
This is a car that feels a little like an electric go kart an to go with that precise handling, pure torque and great fun and as far as we are concerned we are satisfied with that. You can drive it hard and have a huge amount of fun, or dial it back a bit and enjoy a comfortable, easy to live with city runabout, to commute to the depot or yard and to show your ‘green’ credentials while transforming your truck fleet to battery electric, or hybrid.
The very simple start-and-go nature of the 500e makes this a car that is hugely enjoyable, albeit compromised. It is a very easy car to enjoy and mercifully there’s not a lot of active safety or ‘ driver assistance’ to annoy the driver or to take away from the overall driver experience.
The interior has a seriously chic Italo style interior design that matches colours and fabrics really well, with performance highlights, a thick steering wheel and over all switch and instrument deign that just brings a smile to the driver’s dial.
The seats in the 500e Abarth and beautifully shaped and contoured, with what we consider to be good support all around. Because they are of a euro origin they’re heated but they’re not cooled of ventilated.
Naturally storage space is at a premium given the size of the Abarth with a single minuscule console bin which is aimed at keys and wallets but barely copes, while there are USB-A, USB-C and 12V power outlets, with a single cupholder that commands a very awkward access buried deep in the console.
Unless you have a couple of small kiddies you want to drip off at school or pre-post school care, there is no way to get away from the fact that this is a small car and that it is a ‘two adult seat’ car with a very compromised rear seat option for very short legs. You’re either going to view the Abarth 500e as a two-seater, or prepare yourself to make a lot of excuses to people wanting a ride in the back seat.
What can we say it is small and it is compromised.
As standard, the Abarth 500e is equipped with plenty of passive safety including six SRS airbags, front Auto Emergency Braking (AEB) and collision alert, lane keeping assist, ‘blind spot warning, traffic sign information reading and a built in tyre pressure monitoring system.
The Abarth also gets four-wheel-disc brakes, as opposed to the front disc/rear drums in the normal Fiat 500e versions, which is why these things 
stop so well.
While we had the keys to the 500e Abarth we averaged energy consumption of between mid-16 kWh/100kms and low-17kWh/100kms. However the best economy we returned was 15kWh/100kms, which is almost exactly as the maker claims at 14.9kWh/100kms.
Warranty for the Abarth 500e is three years capped at 150,000kms, while servicing is a typical 12-month/15,000km interval, which Stellentis caps at $300 per visit, or $1500 over five years.
The Abarth 500e is a a lot of fun, albeit over priced by about $10,000 in pure terms. This doesn’t take into account the fun factor that comes with this car. As we said it’s compromised in a bunch of ways but when it comes to fun factor it is jammed packed.
It may not suit everyone, but if you are looking for a micro city electric car to run around in nd price is not a factor the Abarth 500e could be it
