here today we have the Fiat 500e the
cheapest EV in North America that has been so successful in the last month
that has been out that the factory that makes it has been on a month-long
shutdown let's take a look at why this has been so unsuccessful and why it is
the cheapest EV styling wise I think that Fiat has done a really good job we
have the project Red version right here which means that some of that money is
going towards helping out with HIV and AIDS very good and the rest of the
project red package means that it is red and it is the base model that is it that
said though they have done an excellent job at making this look like the typical
Fiat 500 without ruining the look as it
got turned into an EV there also are a whole bunch of really nice little
touches here that let you know that it was made in Italy like right here we
have an Italian flag and if you look a bit closer we also have condensation
opening up the hood we we have hydraulic lifters love to see that and there's not
a whole lot going on in here you don't get a frunk but you do get enough space
that if something does happen to break you can probably get your hand in and
fix it and one thing that's pretty cool is apparently this powertrain will be
offered to the aftermarket if you want to use it for Ev conversions in the
future moving around to the side we have 17-in Alloys that are diamond cut and
they are wrapped in 205 tires we do not
have door handles in the traditional sense but you kind of put your hand in
here pull out it actually does work really quite well if you want to lock it
when you go away you just press that little button right there after
traversing all 3.6 M from front to rear
we can see the back which of course still does look really cool I do love
the red paint once again and we have a
little bit of a trunk you can fit maybe three LTT backpacks in here it's not the
worst Siz trunk that I've ever seen Unfortunately they don't fold flat so
you can't fit anything really big in there but overall it could definitely be
worse given the size of this car moving on to charging this thing is built on a
400 volt architecture that features a 42
KW battery which is quite small which
means that you only get 227 km of range
what is fortunate though is that because the battery is quite small charging it
up is no problem at all even on just a
level two charger and they were nice enough to include one in the back with
it from the factory also it's got cute little drum brakes so there's not nearly
enough Headroom back here for anyone
there's also not enough leg room for anyone that isn't a child the seats
themselves are not the worst I've ever sat in and you get a cup holder oh
no I thought that the seat went back to where I had it set but it's as far as it
will go forward so if you want to fit two people that are 6 ft in here one
will be like this and the other one will be it's exactly like this too but in the
back uh let's move this back a bit oh there we go sitting down here in the
driver's seat it's actually pretty good the seat itself for one looks really
cool they have this super nice Fiat stitching in there we have an armor
right here that moves forward and back that has some excellent padding we've
got a little bit of padding on the left side here and the rest of it all could
be pretty accely described as a very
Fisher Price in here you also get one little cup holder that you can move away
when you're not using it you also get what's not really a cup holder but you
can use to put an LTT water bottle in right down there you also get type A and
type c charging as well as 12vt and Raiden here is the microfiber cloth that
you will need because all the stuff that you touch is piano black controls on the
steering wheel all piano black every
single surface that you need to use is piano black one place in here that was
very nicely done is where you put your phone they have a little cityscape of a
Torino where this was made you can just throw it right in there there's a chi
charger that will pair your phone and it also has NFC that will allow for easy
connection to the Bluetooth and also if you don't like Wireless you can just
connect it right there to a data cable and all of it just works really quite
well moving on to the infotainment it's not very good here we have a 10.3 in
screen but that is a diagonal measurement and the actual area is less
than you might expect because it is so freaking wide and the way that it is
used is not the best and it always wants
to go like past where I want to be so so that I want the nav why did it go past
the nav right there I don't know all of this is really quite confusing in here
like we have audio settings controls settings and vehicle all of which are
just different settings and we'll kind of just send you to different screens
within this and all of it is pretty
difficult to use in particular because when I'm driving I am back here like
this and it's a little bit of a reach so I end up just using my thumb and having
my hand planted on it like so overall
it's not the worst that I've experienced because it does at least have Android
auto and that does work pretty good even if the aspect ratio is a little bit
weird but it really likes to just sort of lag out or just kind of stop working
at times which is not the best what is
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20% off your order and free shipping another fun little thing are the buttons
to open the doors it's just a little click and it actually works really quite
well but if you do get trapped inside there is a handle down below to
emergency release it okay I'm recording in a kind of silly way here but this has
been annoying the ever living hell out of me so I'm going to put my foot on the
brake press the start button okay it
looks like it has started all of this appears to be on look at that now if I
press Drive press break pedal and press start
button it doesn't work the first time every single time so I have to come in
here again and press that what why do I have
to do that twice guys just let me turn it on it's so annoying all right now I
can press the least satisfying gear selector and we will be on our way all
right here we are in the Fiat 500e traction control is off and we're going
to launch it wow that is not very fast
in here we have 115 horsepower actually it's 117 that's a good distinction and
160 ft-lb of torque which takes you from 0 to 60 in 7.9 seconds I don't know if
you're really allowed to call it slow when it's under eight because that I
think is kind of the cut off so instead it is perfectly average in speed now
once you've gotten ELO of a launch it is pretty py like I just floor it here it's
nothing exceptional but it is enough to sort of Dart in and out of traffic
without really being worried like you might be in like an older gen Prius or a
yis where you just can't quite keep up that said though where the problems come
in are when you start entering a corner
I don't know how they managed it but this thing is under 3,000 and I was
having genuine difficulty keeping up with our F-150 camera car like how how
is this worse at handling than an
F-150 since a higher steering weight would be transformative to how this
performs on the road I spent literal hours trying to figure out how to get it
more so it says in the owner's manual alternate electri power steering efforts
can be selected in the UK connect system referred to customer programming features with the new connect settings
and multimedia for further information what does that mean I have literally no
clue I've gone through all of the menus in here and could not find anything so I
thought hey maybe it's in the Fiat app so I went gave all my personal details
to the dealer so they can go and make money off of the data that I generate
while I'm in this car and turns out in this app there is nothing about steering
weight I even went so far as contacting Engineers within Fiat I talked to Fiat
assistants all of them absolutely no idea how to do it okay well I'm not
quite sure how to how feel with that one so I guess we
just have to deal with it and the absolute worst part is the steering
weight isn't even the worst part of the whole handling setup because the
suspension in this is dog it is
fuing terrible it is truly an accomplishment how the engineers at Fiat
have managed to make the suspension in this both stiff and underdamped at the
same time so first of all stiff stiff
cars are great because what you want to do is hit a bump and then have your car
immediately settle so you go over
something and that is completely fine by me because then you can say that you're
going in a corner you hit a bump your car doesn't get unsettled and that is
great whereas this right here we're going to go into a
corner I don't know what's happening because this has this really
weird thing where you hit a bump and it's more
like because you sort of get the first bump and then a second bounce afterwards
but it's like it's a really fast bounce and a lot of other cars that are under
damp sort of like your Mercedes your big wallowy SUVs you'll sort of you know you
get that bump and like like it sort of moves around a bit
after you hit a bump but at the same time it's taking all of the harshness
out of the ride and sort of just cruising over top of all of the stuff
this right here has somehow managed to both give you that initial sharpness of
a hit and then a bounce which means it's just always feeling unsettled I never
know what it's doing in a corner and it's just bad this is a brand new car it
has under 2,000 km in it and it also has
a shake on the highway I don't know if the tires are improperly balance or it
doesn't have the correct alignment but what's even more impressive is that jam
test drove a completely different car and it also had a shake on the highway
it's really quite concerning when you're going down the highway in a brand new
car and it is just shaking the entire
time so if you currently have a Fiat 500e and it is shaking new cars don't do
that go to the Dodge dealer and tell them fix it please get a free alignment
or if you're looking to get one of these please please please have them throw in
a balance and Alignment before you drive it off of the log in here we have the
Basse sound system which is not as good as the JBL that you can get in the
inspired by music trim although that said it's pretty hard to recommend an
extra $5,000 on top of a car whose main
selling feature is being cheap but that said this right
here is the worst sound system that we have ever measured it has an incredible
bump in the base up until 60 HZ where it
just completely craters and goes off a
cliff so you have a lot of baselines that will be really loud and then just
completely disappear although that's it if you look at the frequency respon
resps right around like 20 htz it has a
little bump and you can actually feel it because the doors when you have really
low notes will start vibrating and it's
kind of fun that said though the these
speakers are not very good no staging at all you can just hear music from speaker
down there uh get the JBL sound system
if you want it to sound okay another thing that is reserved for the higher
trims is adaptive cruise control in my personal opinion adaptive of cruise is
why you buy a new vehicle it is the single best feature that has come out in
the past 10 or so years it is incredible and it is a sin that the base models of
this do not get it you do get active braking so that'll give you a bit off of
your insurance and I suspect that everything that's required for adaptive
cruise is probably already on this so
chances are down the line you'll be able to just unlock it for free if you know
what you're doing I guess one thing that I want to make clear here is that I
actually like this car as a concept I have nothing against a low-range cheap
EV because in my mind that is where a
lot of people will be getting their first EV once it makes a little bit more
sense I know that for like me and my partner I have a gas car that can drive
us wherever we want she just drives to and from work every single day this
would be absolutely perfect and we have been looking into EVS very similar to
this but that said this is not it at all
with the project red package this right here comes in at $42,000 Canadian in BC
that gets knocked down to $33,000 with all the government
subsidies and at either of those prices it's it's a very bad deal something like
the old Chevy bolt which has been discontinued is better in every single
way than this if you're looking for a GP there is the Volkswagen eolf much better
car use Tesla Model 3 way better even a
used postar 2 is an incredible option at
the moment because those have depreciated horrifically but the Fiat
500e at any of those prices I cannot recommend it is the same price as a
Prius Prime which is just so much better
and sure that has a stop sale right now but at least it's not because no one
wants to buy them and at that $33,000 Canadian Mark you can get a hybrid Civic
a hybrid Corolla so many other cars that
are just so much more of a complete package they have good steering a
comfortable ride a bit more room the
only thing that this car has is looking cool and in my opinion that's not enough
to sell a car so yeah I am very sorry
stantis that's my honest opinion of this car it is what it is it also is the end
of this video huge thanks for sticking around hit like get subscribed and just
have a great all day I'll see you guys in the next one