Fiat CEO says new 500e is 'right tool' for big-city drivers. Can this small EV compete?

The little Fiat 500e — Stellantis NV’s first foray into the U.S. electric vehicle market — is by no means a Swiss Army knife of a car, the brand’s CEO Olivier François says. 

“It’s really the right tool for the job,” he told The Detroit News this week, “and the job is urban mobility, and making urban mobility as ethical as you can.”

François said that means the 500e is for someone who lives in a big city, like New York or Miami. It’s for someone who probably owns a gas-powered car, too, but has at least a little “environmental sensitivity” and is perhaps “tempted by electric but not yet convinced.”

The CEO said it’s for someone not unlike himself.

“I live in Miami,” he said. “I have a big SUV combustion car. I feel terribly guilty driving it through the city, and you know, plus it’s a gas guzzler, I need to put fuel in it all the time.” He likes the SUV when it comes to driving the kids to Disney World — “but most of the time, that’s not what I need.”

The car has sold well in Europe, at almost 65,000 units last year. A first trim for U.S. customers, the (500e) RED, started production at the Mirafiori Assembly Plant in Turin, Italy, earlier this year, with the company saying the first units will hit dealership lots by the end of the month. 

This week, Fiat unveiled two additional 500e trims, “Inspired By Beauty” and “Inspired By Music,” at a climate conference in Miami. They are set to hit dealers in the third quarter. The beauty trim has a rose gold exterior, beige eco-leather seats, and is “a little more feminine” overall, François said. 

The music iteration comes in black, has high-end JBL speakers, and is like a “baby limo,” the CEO said. Fiat partnered with Italian tenor Andre Bocelli on the car and sound system, including on its ability to virtually transport listeners to several music venues. 

The RED edition starts at $32,500, and the “Inspired By” variants start at $36,000 — prices that don’t include $1,595 destination charges. They have 149 miles of range and come with either a Level 2 charging unit or credits through the Free2Move network of charging stations. 

Overall Fiat sales in the U.S. have declined rapidly in recent years. Since returning to the U.S. market in 2011, the brand has sold at the high end more than 40,000 cars about a decade ago, but that figure had plummeted to about 900 in 2022, and about 600 last year. 

Due to federal and state emissions mandates, Fiat offered an electric version of its 500 before on the West Coast, prior to the merger that created Stellantis in 2021. But it didn’t sell well, and executives didn’t exactly want it to, since they said every car lost money. François acknowledged that prior version, which was built in Mexico, had been “electrified as an afterthought.” 

This time, the 500e has been “designed from the beginning to be an electric vehicle,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions LLC. That means it should lose the company less money, he said, though it’s also unlikely to be particularly lucrative for the company. 

Fiorani said the car will surely get some interest from inner-city commuters looking for a practical car. Yet those same customers may be drawn to a Chevrolet Bolt, left over from the 2023 model year, or a Nissan Leaf. Those two EVs have significantly better range and are in the same price range as the 500e, he said.

“The vehicle itself is not going to make big waves in the marketplace,” Fiorani said of the 500e, but it does allow Stellantis to break into the American EV market, “even if it’s just a toe in the water.” 

Fiat also needs to appease its dealerships in the United States, Fiorani said, who at this point only have one model to sell — the 500X crossover.

“These dealerships are starved for product, and if they are going to continue to make a go of it, they need to feed them product as fast as possible,” Fiorani said.

François, for his part, said he hopes the new model brings a bit of Italian flair to the U.S. market. 

“I’m bringing you a car that’s what every electric car should be, so far,” he said. “It is well made, super fun to drive, so it’s not punishment, it’s the opposite. You are rewarded all the time, you drive it with joy, and a smile on your face.”

lramseth@detroitnews.com

@lramseth