Fiat and Electric Cars: Fifty Years of Experiments, Missed Chances and Late Realisations
While today’s Fiat proudly promotes its “innovative and radical” line-up of electric vehicles, it is worth remembering that the idea of an electric city car was already on the drawing board in Italy back in 1972. Unfortunately, the X1/23 of that era became just another museum piece in the brand’s long and awkward electrification story.
The X1/23 was smaller than a Fiat 500 yet surprisingly clever for its time: a Michelotti-designed two-seater with a 13.5-horsepower electric motor and a range of 80 kilometres. Perfect for Europe’s congested cities — if only Fiat had bothered to put it into production. It didn’t.
By 1976, the company tried again with the Fiat 126 Vettura Urbana concept. It offered sliding doors and a compact solution for four passengers, but once more there was no move to series production. In the electric arena, Fiat lagged far behind the initiatives of Japan — or even France — during the same years.
Only in the 1990s did the first electric Pandas, Cinquecentos and Seicentos appear under the Fiat Elettra badge. Technically modest, heavy, and powered by lead-acid batteries, they still made it to market. Concepts such as the 1993 Fiat Downtown — with a central driving position, aluminium frame and plastic panels — sounded like a modern start-up’s fantasy, yet remained confined to the show floor.
In the past decade, Fiat has finally begun producing electric cars in earnest. The Fiat 500e has found success in Europe thanks to its design and affordable trims, though its range lags behind many rivals. The new Grande Panda EV aims for the same budget city car appeal, but with a 44 kWh battery and a claimed 320 km range for €25,000, it offers nothing that a Dacia Spring or Renault Twingo cannot match in the same bracket.
Similarly, the Fiat 600e, pitched as a practical, “ready for anything” B-segment all-rounder, delivers 400 km combined (and 600 km city) range, 156 hp and 0–100 km/h in nine seconds — adequate, but far from standout among European competitors.
Fiat’s recent foray into electric vehicles feels more like a temporary burst of enthusiasm than a sustained vision. The fifty-year journey from the X1/23 to the Grande Panda Electric shows that electrification was never Fiat’s priority, but rather an obligation. And obligations, as we know, rarely produce anything truly brilliant.
