Fiat 600e review

• Overview
• What is it?
• I can see the 500-ish details.
• Did they succeed in making space?
• So underneath is it just a stretched 500 electric?
• What does that do for the numbers?
• So if it’s got so much in common with so many cars, let me guess how it drives?
• There are no chargers near me, and I want to keep the monthly payments low. Talk hybrid.
• What's the verdict?
• Vauxhall Mokka
• Jeep Avenger
• Nissan Leaf
• Driving
• What is it like to drive?
• Like any other EV?
• Oh. What about corners?
• But comfort matters more in a car like this, surely?
• Any handy tech?
• Interior
• What is it like on the inside?
• Buying
• What should I be paying?

Overview

What is it?

Let’s not get hung up on categorising the Fiat 600e. It identifies as non-binary, and we live in an inclusive world don’t we. It’s somewhere between supermini and small crossover.

Its designers speak of the 600e a big sibling to the Fiat 500 electric, and the styling certainly riffs off that. It’s the same height. Which makes it a supermini, a successor to those vast numbers of Grande Puntos and Puntos and Unos.

On the other hand, it has a crossover job to do. It succeeds the Fiat 500X, which was also pretty successful in its day. But actually it’s even less crossovery than the not-very-crossovery 500X.

We’re testing the 600e full-electric car here, and it’s competitively priced. But there’ll be a substantially cheaper hybrid about half a year later, because Fiat sees itself as a car for the people and doesn’t want to cut itself off from the 80 per cent of people who still buy cars with engines.

Competition is mostly in-house, from the Stellantis empire. Think Vauxhall Mokka and Jeep Avenger as crossovers, or the Peugeot 208 and Vauxhall Corsa as superminis. There’s the MG 4 and BYD Dolphin. A Kia Soul with the smaller battery option also counts. The Nissan Leaf is teetering on the edge of retirement; the Hyundai Kona electric has just grown a step in its second generation, so it’s dearer.

I can see the 500-ish details.

Yup, the lights and smiling facial expression are visibly a branch of the 500 family tree. So is the general shape of the facia, and the upholstery patterns. Fiat makes a big deal of painting the 600e in a range of cheery ‘Italian’ colours.

But where the 500’s body is a generously curved thing the 600 has lost much of that fulsome sculpture. Its sides are more bland. The designers claim they did this so it would enclose as much headroom and boot space as possible. Which is, we say, a pretty boring approach to designing a ‘bigger 500’.

Did they succeed in making space?

On a length of less than 4.2 metres, this is a useably roomy car with a decent boot. No frunk though. Click the ‘Interior’ tab of this review for more.

So underneath is it just a stretched 500 electric?

Nope, something else entirely. Fiat is making no coy assertions that this is an all-new car. It uses proven underwear. “This platform has already won Car of the Year twice,” said one of the development team – the Peugeot 208 and Jeep Avenger both took that trophy.

This brings another selling point, they reckon. They’re painfully aware Fiat has hardly been a byword for solid reliability and sturdiness. So they want to stress the 600 is built on the same dependable foundation as all those Stellantis sibs, the 208s, 2008s, Corsas, Mokkas, C4s and DS 3s. And most closely of all, the Jeep Avenger.

The electric system – motor, power inverter, battery – is the second generation setup that’s coming out with the facelift versions of those other cars.

What does that do for the numbers?

The motor is 156bhp and the battery 51kWh net. Which isn’t very big, but it doesn’t need to be, because we’ve always found cars with this powertrain to be notably efficient. Our test of this one got a real-world mixed-road mixed-weather range of nearly 220 miles, against a WLTP of 250 miles.

So if it’s got so much in common with so many cars, let me guess how it drives?

Fiat has abandoned the idea of fizzy little cars. The 600e is set up to be comfortable. It’s quiet, and accelerates smoothly. But the steering and brakes are infuriating. The wheel is so feathery-light it’s hard to turn smoothly into a bend. The brake pedal is inconsistent. More details in the driving tab. But in short, don’t buy it for driving joy unbounded.

There are no chargers near me, and I want to keep the monthly payments low. Talk hybrid.

It’s plug-less. The engine is a 100bhp three-cylinder, running the Atkinson cycle engine (which is better for part-throttle efficiency). It has a big starter-alternator on the engine, and another motor of 29 horsepower embedded in a six-speed dual-clutch transmission. So a fairly mild hybrid system, but not insignificant. The CO2 will be about 110g/km, which is good going. More details when we drive it late in 2024, more than half a year after the electric 600e goes on sale in Britain.

The 600 ticks the rational boxes. It’s a decently equipped supermini-crossover with electric power at a price many folk pay for a petrol auto. It’s spacious for a car that size, and comfy. The electric stuff – efficiency, charge times, standard heat pump – doesn’t drop the ball.

But beyond the clever lighting jewellery and friendly face, the exterior design doesn’t really break the mould. Not like say the Mokka or (Marmitey) DS 3. And it’s not as good to drive as several other small EVs. It feels like Fiat wasn’t quite trying hard enough.

Vauxhall Mokka

£17,929 – £34,940

Jeep Avenger

Nissan Leaf

£28,440 – £39,340

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Driving

Driving

What is it like to drive?

Like any other EV?

If you mean smooth and quiet, then yes. The acceleration happens without you noticing. Which is good. It’s not like it’s so powerful you have to tread the accelerator like a landmine. But it’s not annoyingly sluggish like an off-boost petrol. It just goes, progressively and fusslessly, en route to 62mph in 9.0 seconds.

Less good news on the braking front. On a long deceleration from say 50mph, it’s the same: hold your foot steady on the pedal and the braking increases after an interval. It’s the same on a long downhill. In normal stops, the pedal effort starts light, then suddenly gets heavier part-way through. It’s similarly tricky get to come off the brakes progressively. We need to be clear: we never found a problem with safety: it stops stoutly and pulls up straight. It’s just hard to be smooth. It’s like early hybrids were.

Oh. What about corners?

The steering is too light for us – even in the heavier of its two settings. This tends to mean you sweep too suddenly into your first few corners. And then you find that pretty well zero feedback comes up from the tyres. The steering is actually accurate and the cornering, even at big efforts, is tidy enough. At less than 1,500kg the 600e isn’t hampered by vast mass. But the numbness deprives it of much interest.

But comfort matters more in a car like this, surely?

Well yes. And the 600e’s softish suspension does have a good appetite for big bumps and dips, mostly without getting too floaty. Corrugations will reveal some shudder, a want of high-frequency damping, but it’s no disgrace. And road noise is well coddled away.

Any handy tech?

The upper spec has adaptive cruise control with assisted lane centring, and it works well. Its steering inputs are smooth, and when you indicate to overtake on a dual-carriageway it increases speed before you’re fully in the overtaking lane, rather than waiting frustratingly.

The screen menus, borrowed from countless Stellantis cars beginning with Peugeots, have a welcome new function: you can programme the ‘car’ hardkey on the dash so that a long-press directly defeats the lane-departure system, so the thing doesn’t yank at the wheel when you use the full lane width on swerving roads. VW Group take note.

Upper spec also gets a rear-view camera and electric mirror folding, which are super handy in a city car.

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Overview

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Interior

Interior

What is it like on the inside?

As promised, it’s very much ‘500, my how you’ve grown’. It has a similar wing-like upper dash, in cheerily painted colour. The seats are decorated in coloured stitching too, so it’s a bright atmosphere. And they’re softish and nicely contoured.

The dash and door plastics are almost universally hard, so they feel cheaper than they look, but maybe it’s just road testers who feel compelled to knock and scrape at every moulding in search of a judgement on ‘build quality’. But hey, because it isn’t expensive soft double-foam plastic it keeps the 600e’s price down. It all fits together well, and looks stylish, and some of the shelves have rubber trays to stop your stuff rattling and sliding around.

Rear space is just about OK for adults to sit behind adults. Knee room is tight but leg room tenable because the battery is shaped to let you tuck your feet under the front seats. And as our catty comments about the styling indicate, there’s headroom back there too. The boot’s good for the class, with a double floor beneath which you can tame the snaky charge cable.

The driver’s screen sits in a circular pod, but the actual display is jarringly rectangular, with square-edge graphics. The main touchscreen is quick-reacting, neatly populated and usefully configurable. CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, and because there are hard keys for car and climate functions it’s easy to flick between the Fiat screens and the phone-mirroring ones and back again.

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Driving

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Buying

Buying

What should I be paying?

For the 600e, Fiat is keeping it determinedly simple: one motor-battery combo, two trim levels. Only option is paint colour.

The lower spec is [Red]. For the rights to call it that, Fiat donates to Bono’s pandemic charity of the same name. And, as with an iPhone [Red] or many other of the foundation’s tie-ups, the car is painted… well you can guess. Or if you must you can have that one in white or black.

It’s £32,995. It rolls on little 16-inch wheels, but their trims disguise the smallness. It gets all-LED lighting, park sensors and keyless go. The touchscreen is a full-size 10.25-incher, with wireless phone mirroring.

The top one, pictured here, is called La Prima. Now you’re on 18-inch alloys, and there’s extra chrome around the windows. Inside it gets built-in navigation, electric massaging driver’s seat, a powered hatchback, and level two driver assist.

Range is 254 for the small-wheeled [Red] and hardly different – 252 – for the La Prima. Both have a heat pump as standard, to reduce loss in winter.

Charge time is just over eight hours zero to 100 on a normal AC 7.4kW outlet. If you can only get a 3.7kW at home, that doubles, of course. It actually accepts three-phase too, but only at 11kW, so the improvement isn’t transformative: five hours 45 minutes.

DC charging peaks at 100kW. But only peaks: it slows as the battery fills. So it’s 27 minutes from 20-80. If real-world range is 200 miles, that means adding 60 per cent of that, or 132 miles in 27 minutes. That’s OK rather than brilliant.

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Interior

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Specs & Prices

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