2024 Fiat 500e First Drive Review: An Adorable Espresso Shot of an EV

Remember when Tesla promised a $35,000 EV only to sell it for all of five minutes before pulling the plug so it could presumably turn around and continue work on the $80,000 Cybertruck? Well, Stellantis evidently has a different approach to EV rollouts. Yes, the headline-grabbing, I-don't-actually-care-about-efficiency Dodge Charger Daytona is indeed coming soon but before that drops, we have something completely different. We have the 2024 Fiat 500e.

Starting at $34,095 delivered, it happens to be the first Stellantis EV sold in North America. And while it may be new to us, it isn't a new car per se. The electric Cinquecento has been built and sold in Europe since 2020 so, y'know, don't fret too much about avoiding first model year 2024 examples in the interest of reliability or whatever. Not that Fiat buyers typically concerned themselves with that sort of thing, but I digress.

What Fiat buyers do care about is style, whimsy, a compact, city-slicking chuckability, and that unspoken je ne sais quoi (This phrase is Italian, right?) that comes with driving an eye-talian motor vehicle. And on those fronts, the electric 500 mostly delivers.

Where's The Pizza Oven?

Let's start with that style. You know what a Fiat 500 looks like. I know what a Fiat 500 looks like. Anyone born after 1957 knows what a Fiat 500 looks like. Even in electric form, the automotive caricature of Italy retains its flipped-shot-glass proportions and puppy dog demeanor. Seventeen-inch wheels are standard, and those classic bugeye headlights have been given eyelids that make the car look perpetually unimpressed at something. Electronic exterior door handles (read: you press a button behind the handle) exist as slots that do not extrude from the body, cutting down on aerodynamic drag and looking a bit like the door handles of an airplane bathroom.

Inside, the dash, gauge cluster, and two-spoke steering wheel serve as an homage to the O.G. 500 from the '50s. Certifiably not from the '50s, however, is a 10.25-inch touchscreen running Uconnect 5 with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This screen and the software it runs work well; snappy, bright even in direct sunlight, and sharp-looking.

Elsewhere, it's a relatively simple, practical interior. There are actual, physical, hard buttons controlling the HVAC, how 'bout that? And gear selection is done via buttons too—typically a sin on premise alone but the 500e gets a pass on execution because these buttons are big, clear, and won't be confused for anything else.

Obviously, don't expect a ton of room inside this sub-subcompact but as a medium-compact adult male, the front seats of the 500e felt far from claustrophobic, all things considered. There are a fair amount of storage nooks and cubbies that make the most out of the space and the lack of a transmission tunnel makes the space between driver and passenger very airy.

Its status as an economy car shows itself in the manual-adjust seats and interior plastics which are hard pretty much everywhere. But the steering wheel is wrapped in a reasonably nice leather material and there are quite a few Easter eggs sprinkled around to make it feel a bit more special than the cabin of, say, a Toyota Yaris. The wireless charging pad is stamped with what I'm assuming is Turin's skyline, the seats say "Fiat" all over them, and there's a little picture of the original 500 in the bottom of the door pulls.

If Fiat really wanted to make the place Feel Like Italy, the glove box would double as a pizza oven, but I can't imagine that'd be great for driving range.