Urban pocket rocket? B-road blaster? Actually, it’s neither
FELIX PAGE
MILEAGE 4420
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
This hi-vis EV could be the future of hot hatches. Should we be excited?
An industry colleague who attended the launch of the 500e last year told one of Abarth’s engineers how poor the car’s low-speed manoeuvrability and refinement was, and he was consequently reassured that these issues would be fixed for production. I don’t think they were.
Something so tightly packaged and city-centric should be a doddle to manage in congested areas and to park with abandon in cramped spaces, but I drove a new Ford Transit Custom van home recently and can quite honestly say I found it easier to parallel park.
It’s not that Abarth’s little hot hatch is particularly cumbersome or unwieldy – quite the opposite. Its short overhangs, excellent all-round visibility and tight turning circle are all welcome qualities in the context of our too-narrow roadways and 1960s-era multi-storeys. But its counterintuitive, clunky behaviour at low speed is so aggravating as to properly stress me out in certain settings.
The biggest problem is the lack of graduation in throttle and brake pedal inputs in stop-start situations, like heavy traffic and car parks. The throttle is like an on/off switch from standstill, even in economy-focused Turismo driving mode, and the brake is like an anchor.
This not only makes for frustratingly jerky manoeuvres that cause my passengers to feel queasy but also makes it extremely difficult to edge right up against walls and other cars. Rather than risk denting a bumper, I usually end up leaving a huge gap ahead of me in jams and taking up about as much of each parking space as, say, a Range Rover Evoque – which rather defeats the point.
The 500e also rides slightly too firmly to ever really cement itself as a no-hassle urban prowler. I wouldn’t go so far as to use the words ‘uncompromising’ or ‘harsh’, but it’s tangibly harder on your coccyx than the thicker-sidewalled, spongier Fiat 500 on which it is based. A snarl-up on the main road home the other day sent me down a few miles of residential rat runs, each generously furnished by steep-sided speed bumps that the 500e couldn’t comfortably clear at any more than about 10mph.
There’s a certain irony here that you can’t fail to acknowledge: the 500e’s piddly 42kWh battery and tiny cabin mean it’s categorically not a long-distance cruiser, but its frustratin
