Why we’re running it: This hi-vis EV could be the future of hot hatches. Should we be excited?
Month 1 - Specs
Life with an Abarth 500e: Month 1
Welcoming the Abarth to the fleet
Cliché though it is to report on the experience of moving house with a long-term test car, I can't really neglect to highlight the irony of this diminutive supermini replacing the comparatively quite humongous Volkswagen ID Buzz outside my place of residence, just a couple of weeks before I'm due to vacate the premises.
Come moving day, had I still had the VW on hand, I would have removed the Buzz's false boot floor, opened the massive tailgate and twin sliding doors, folded the rear seats flat and had enough space for around half of the contents of the flat (or at least most of my partner's wardrobe).
No van rental, no tears over smashed plant pots and crumpled paintings and no need for more than two or three shuttle runs between new pad and old.
Things might not be so simple with the two-door, tiny-booted Abarth 500e. A spot of quick maths reveals it to be one of the smallest full-sized electric cars you can currently buy in the UK. I might ask if the flat's next occupants fancy keeping our dining table.
Let's look on the bright side, though (and I'm not talking about the Acid Green paintwork). The Abarth's compact proportions have already proven to be much better suited to city life: it fits into my tiny parking space with ample room either side, it can nip into tight gaps in traffic so I rarely miss a green light and it makes light work of the high-kerbed helter skelter coming out of Heathrow's Terminal 5 short-stay car park.
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The Autocar long term fleet seems to be littered with cars that nobody actually buys.
Seriously who is going to spend £40k on a local runabout with a bit of extra pep? A quick glance at a popular used car website shows the real value of this little fun machine!
Maybe if this car was half the price and half the weight I'd be a little more excited.
Like too many EVs, it is still too expensive, and it's not alone in rapiod depreciation. I love the concpet but for this price it needs more performance and range.
Regarding the price, it's too high but I suppose has to be higher than the fiat, and that is probably so high because EVs are expensive and it's on a new bespoke platform that currently nothing else shares, so hasn't yet got economies of scale?
Maybe when they replace the ice 500 with the hybrid based on the EV platform and do the same with the panda, the price will come down? It'd be great if stellantis used the platform as well, but that's doubtful as all the other stellantis brands abandoned city cars because they're too expensive to build now and impossible to make a profit on.
Love to know what profit fiat actually make on these and if it is minimal.
All that aside, if I could afford one, I'd definitely have one and am looking forward to read further views on this long term test, especially regarding how the abarth stacks up against the fiat.