Fiat 500: long-term test review
First report: We take our new Fiat 500 on a long trip outside its comfort zone
Verdict
The 500 continues to impress; it’s effortless to drive, while a lot of thought has clearly gone into its overall design. The charging issues we encountered can’t be blamed on the car, but the problem is exacerbated by the 500 struggling to match its urban efficiency while travelling at motorway speeds.
- Mileage: 3,191 miles
- Efficiency: 3.9 miles/kWh
I’ve been fortunate enough to sample a decent number of the current crop of electric cars available to drivers in the UK, but I’ve never had the chance to run one on a daily basis until now. With our news editor James Brodie taking a well deserved holiday, I was more than happy to be handed the keys to his Fiat 500 long-termer for a few weeks. And I pressed the little Italian city car straight into action, its first task being a 150-mile trek to the West Country.
The 500 didn’t take long to impress me. Its slick infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay functionality is a highlight, plus it’s effortless to drive in urban areas, thanks to its smooth electric powertrain, light steering and efficient regenerative-braking system.
As I pulled on to the motorway, though, and accelerated to 70mph, the rate at which the 500 haemorrhaged miles of range was a little alarming. The indicated 165 miles I’d started with – already lower than the 199-mile WLTP range – had fallen to nearer 140 miles, and was dropping even further. I realised a top-up would be needed sooner than I expected, so I set course for an Instavolt rapid charger at a service area. Upon arrival, though, I found another car already plugged in. With no other unit available, I decided to look elsewhere.
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Off the motorway and further along my route, I arrived at a GeniePoint rapid charger. However, I made around six attempts to get it going, and each time was greeted with a message that read ‘CCS error’ followed by a plea to contact GeniePoint’s maintenance staff.
I phoned up the company’s helpline and, after a few minutes on hold, heard an all-too-familiar message about an unusually high number of calls. At that point I gave up, and again climbed behind the wheel to head for the next rapid charger along my route.
This time, it was a Swarco E.Connect unit in a pub car park, with a notice proudly boasting that it had been installed under contract from National Highways. This didn’t change the fact that, once again, each of my attempts to get the unit to actually charge the 500 resulted in nothing.
Thankfully I managed to reach a customer-service agent on the phone, who was very friendly and keen to help, remotely restarting the charger twice. Even this did not work, annoyingly, and the agent apologised, explaining that an engineer would have to be sent out.
I didn’t have a lot of range left at this point, and there weren’t many other rapid chargers around. As a result, I decided to take a gamble and set my sat-nav for a retail park 17 miles away which claimed to have three rapid chargers, knowing full well that if none of them worked, I’d end up calling my breakdown company.
I arrived at the first charger – a BP Pulse unit – with 10 miles of range to spare, and thankfully it started charging the car on my first attempt. I had 80 per cent battery 45 minutes later, and managed to reach my destination on the Somerset/Devon border – although to conserve the range I did set the cruise control at 55mph for many stretches of 70mph dual-carriageway.
Across various other journeys I’ve since made in the Fiat, including returning to London via Dorset, I’ve both charged on a domestic three-pin set up and used a couple of other rapid chargers – one Shell Recharge unit and another GeniePoint – both of which worked flawlessly. I also managed to charge to 100 per cent at a 7kW Source London Type 2 unit, which took around seven hours and 30 minutes.
Yet in spite of the charges I have managed, a success rate of three out of five for the public units I’ve plugged into isn’t ideal. And as for the 500, which is a brilliant car in many ways, its aversion to travelling at motorway speeds is quite a serious flaw.
| Model: | Fiat 500 Passion 87kW |
| On fleet since: | Sep-21 |
| Price new: | £26,995 (after Govt. grant) |
| Engine: | Single 116bhp electric motor, 42kWh battery |
| CO2/tax: | 0g/km/£0 |
| Options: | Cloud Grey metallic, paint (£1,000), 16-inch, alloys (£350), wireless charging (£150), 10.25in touchscreen w. nav (£500) |
| Insurance*: | Group: 16D Quote: £446 |
| Mileage: | 3,191 miles |
| Efficiency: | 3.9 miles/kWh |
| Any problems? | None so far |
