- Fiat has kicked off production of the a gas-powered version of the new 500, which was supposed to be electric-only.
- Full-scale production of the new 500 “Hybrid” will begin in November.
- The manufacturer is targeting at least 100,000 annual sales with the new model.
Wherever you go around Europe, in towns or out in the country, you’re bound to see one of the continent’s most ubiquitous automotive shapes: the Fiat 500. But you won’t see too many of the new electric models, which have proven to be a sales flop, so Fiat has just put a combustion engine back under the hood of the 500.
The new 500e launched five years ago, and was never designed to have an engine. It was conceived from the ground up as a pure electric vehicle, and every time we drive one, we really like it, although we’re not sure who it’s for.
However, it had one major downside, the same one that also doomed the cute Honda e: the price. It costs around $37,610 (€33.900), which which is over twice as much as the combustion model. Fiat launched that model way back in 2008, and kept it in production until last year.
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Source: Fiat
This means that if Fiat had kept it in production for three more years, it would have become a 20-year-old design. But Fiat didn’t keep it in production for that long because it was preparing to launch the combustion version of the newest model.
The manufacturer recently announced that it had assembled the first pre-production examples of what it calls the 500 Hybrid. (More on that below.) The goal is to begin full-scale production of the new model in November, and the target is over 100,000 annual sales.
Fiat doesn’t seem to have changed anything about the 500’s design when converting it to a combustion vehicle. It showed the partly hidden interior with the six-speed stick shift prominently poking through the camouflage. The instrument cluster will likely be different in the Hybrid, and it will gain a third pedal, but other than that, it’s likely identical.
Even the wheels are exactly the same, and the exhaust pipe is tucked under the edge of the bumper out of sight. The only part of the exterior that is different is the grille, which is hidden under camouflage, and it has an opening to allow the engine to breathe.
We don’t know any specifics of the powertrain, but we’re pretty sure the car won’t be an actual hybrid but rather a mild hybrid. There are currently no hybrids with manual gearboxes, and only Honda offered them for a few years, but it doesn’t anymore.
It could simply carry over the non-turbo 1-liter three-cylinder of the old car, which was already a mild hybrid and made just 70 horsepower. The new car is a bit bigger and heavier, so that engine may not be too fun in this package.
Fiat is unlikely to reintroduce a combustion-powered hot Abarth model. It offers that solely as an EV these days, which has a bit more power than the standard model at 155 hp. It also makes sporty gas engine noises outside, like a Dodge Charger EV.
Offering an automatic transmission with the combustion version would likely help it boost sales to the level it’s expecting. We hope not to see the dreaded automated manual transmission from the old model make a reappearance.
Fiat putting a combustion engine into a vehicle it had designed as a pure EV is yet another sign that manufacturers are backtracking on their electrification goals announced just a few years ago. Even the European Union has voted to allow carmakers a little more time to comply with the new, stricter emissions regulations.
