Collin Woodard/Jalopnik For a lot of you, new car ownership is nothing new, but not everyone was lucky enough to be born into a family that didn't get screwed when the textile industry largely left the U.S. And when you end up with a career that pays a blogger's salary, you generally assume you'll be driving used cars for life. But while a licensed fiduciary would have probably recommended against me leasing this 2024 Fiat 500e, I didn't ask a fiduciary. I asked myself, and myself said, "Hell yeah, brother!" The lease was cheap enough, at least half of my monthly payment would have gone to gas anyway, and believe it or not, there's more to life than dollars and cents. Coming from cars that I couldn't lend to other people without giving them the full rundown of all the tricks they'd need to know if they wanted to drive my car, I expected a brand-new EV would be infinitely less problematic than I was used to. At the same time, though, we're still talking about an all-electric Fiat that Stellantis builds in Italy, so I also had a feeling I wasn't exactly in for a problem-free experience. Eventually, something was guaranteed to go wrong, and I would have to deal with it. At least, that's what I assumed. Thankfully, the dealer I leased it from gave me a 500e that doesn't have the problem where it randomly stops charging in the middle of a session, but don't worry. Plenty of other things have already gone wrong, and I'm sure more things will go wrong in the future. The thing is, though, I haven't actually had to fix anything because, no matter what goes wrong, the car apparently knows how to fix itself, and no issue has lasted longer than a couple of weeks. And that, my friends is the magic of Italian engineering. Problems? What problems? Collin Woodard/Jalopnik One of the first things I noticed was that my car likes to warn me that one-pedal driving is temporarily unavailable. Nothing about the way the regenerative braking feels ever changes when that notification pops up, and I've intentionally tested its ability to bring the car to a complete stop in settings where it was safe to do so. As best as I can tell, there have never been any issues with my car's one-pedal driving or regenerative braking, but the screen sure loves making that claim anyway. Similarly, my car also warns me on a less-frequent basis that certain safety features are temporarily unavailable, including automatic emergency braking. The good news is, my eyes have pretty good pedestrian detection, and they also do a pretty good job of telling my brain when it's time to brake. So I haven't crashed, but I've also never been had the opportunity to test whether the emergency braking really is unavailable whenever I get that popup. Based on the accuracy of the one-pedal driving warning, part of me thinks this one is a false alarm, too, but that's also not something I'm willing to gamble my own life on. More recently, my car randomly decided that it could no longer detect either key fob. The buttons still worked, so I didn't have to leave the car unlocked, but the car would only turn on I put the fob on the special dead-key spot before hitting the start button. At first, I thought my sister-in-law had accidentally broken my key fob, but then I realized the second fob (which was many miles away when she could have potentially broken the first key) had the same issue. I didn't have the energy to deal with it, and the car still worked, so I just got in the habit of dropping my key in the center console every time I got in. Until a couple weeks later, when both keys randomly started working again. Since then, I haven't had a single issue with either fob, and once again, a car that fixes itself for free is better than a car you have to pay a mechanic to fix. I'd say I made the right call. It might work, but also, maybe it won't Collin Woodard/Jalopnik If your definition of a reliable car is one that starts every time you ask it to, goes into gear without any issues, and can then drives until you stop intentionally, my 500e's got you covered there. Then again, I'm pretty sure that's the case with almost every modern EV, since the typical ICE worries about starters, alternators, gaskets, seals, chains, and belts are largely irrelevant when your car doesn't have an engine. There do, however, appear to be a few gremlins in the electronics, and while most things work most of the time, you also never know when something will randomly decide not to work for a couple hours. For example, Android Auto works great. Except yesterday, Android Auto wouldn't activate at all. It'll probably be fine today, but it's still annoying. For such a cheap car built around such an expensive battery, I was also surprised to learn the sound system was better than I expected (my expectations were, uh, not high). But sometimes, the speakers just decide to take the day off. Or they decide to play other sounds but not the sound of Carter Faith reminding me that "even Jesus thinks that you're a b—h." The audio's never stopped working permanently, though, which is good because Ms. Faith loves to remind me "I can hold one hell of a grudge." A lot of things have also happened once or twice and then never again. The first time I tried adjusting my mirrors, and they decided not to move, I assumed I had a problem on my hands, but there never was a second time, so problem solved? I'm also pretty sure there have been a few instances where I didn't get full power while I was accelerating. It wasn't so bad that it felt dangerous, and it's not something I've been able to repeat, but it was weird. And then it went away. Hopefully, it doesn't come back? That said, the fact that my car's so good at fixing itself doesn't mean it couldn't be better. So, I guess it's time to head to the dealer and see if a software update makes these problems disappear for good. I'll probably miss driving a self-healing car, but something tells me a problem-free car with features that always work might make it worth the sacrifice.