Abarth 600e (2024 - ) Electric review

In most ways the 600e’s running costs are about what you’d expect; it’s an EV, so it’s quite cheap to run. Charge at home using cheap 'leccy and, compared to something of similar performance with a petrol engine, it’s well cheap. Its 54kWh battery isn’t the biggest in the business, giving the car a claimed range of “up to 207 miles”. You can reduce that by a quarter though, given the usual issues with range claims, but also because of the way this mad car may or may not affect your particular driving style. And recent changes to VED have made EV costs less appealing generally - you’ll pay a £195 tax annually from your second year now, as opposed to nothing. But, Abarth has cleverly priced the limited edition (and more powerful) ‘Scorpionissima‘ version a couple of hundred quid below the £40K “luxury car” threshold, at least, meaning you juuuust avoid the extra £425 per year in VED payments. You can’t even option it above £40K, with the only extra being a £100 wheel upgrade. Fair play, Abarth.

We gave the standard 600e a two-star reliability rating because our test car had an electrical meltdown within minutes. Sometimes stuff like that just happens … although it does tend to happen to certain cars more than others. Anyway, no issues at all with our Abarth, and that whole schtick about Fiats being unreliable is slowly being overcome by its new owners, Stellantis. That’s Stellantis who makes all the Jeeps, Citroens, Peugeots, Maseratis and Vauxhalls. Sure, hardly a group recognised for Lexus-like reliability, but the mass adoption of parts across these brands means that manufacturing and reliability are improving. And anecdotally the Abarth 500e, on which the 600e here is based, isn’t known to be an unreliable car.

Without being top of the class, the Abarth 600e is as safe as you’d need it to be. It hasn’t been tested specifically by Euro NCAP (which is to say, the Fiat 600e hasn’t been tested), but the closely related Jeep Avenger has, getting a four-star score. As usual with a modern car, it’s fitted with a number of active safety systems – emergency automatic braking and such like – and six airbags. Also as usual with a modern car, it will not allow you to creep over the speed limit without loudly bonging at you. And Fiat’s infotainment system remains one of the least intuitive to use on the market, requiring a little too much focus when you’re on the move. That said, the lane-keeping assistant is one of the less intrusive you’ll encounter, at least, rarely taking control of the wheel.

Not very. Comfort is the Abarth’s Achilles' heel. In transforming the Fiat 600e into an Abarth, the company’s engineers have lowered and stiffened the suspension, embiggened (it’s a word) the wheels, wrapped them in high-performance Michelin tyres, tuned the steering for more road feel, beefed up the brakes, and added a clever thing called a mechanical limited-slip differential. That alone alters the handling characteristics of the car entirely. Oh, and it is of course more powerful, getting a razor-sharp 237 horsepower from its electric motor as standard, or 276 if you go for the Scorpionissima model. It all adds up to a car that’s remarkable to drive. It's almost … and we’re genuinely reluctant to say this … ‘go-kartish’. Have you ever been go-karting though? It’s fun, right? But you wouldn’t want to do the food shopping in one. The Abarth 600e jiggles over the road like a plastic sledge being dragged across a gravel driveway. By a whippet. It’s worse in the Scorpionissima model too, because the special seats squeeze your thighs like jeggings, and their weird ‘spine’ section digs into your back. In addition, the 600e just isn’t that big, even for a compact crossover, so your rear passengers will feel quite hemmed in. Again, though, it’s a lot of fun, and lots of people will consider all this a price worth paying.

Aside from all the performance changes, the Abarth 600e is a relatively well-equipped car as standard – especially the Scorpionissima model, which gets everything thrown at it. The basics are there with climate control, touch-screen infotainment, smartphone mirroring, keyless entry, big wheels. That said, if you like to use proprietary navigation, that’s an option on the base car, as is the ‘sound generator’ – a feature we’ll come to in the next section. As an aside, we do wish Abarth had given the 600e adaptable suspension – even optionally – because it would make the thing MUCH easier to live with as a day-to-day car. Hey ho. But while you’ll look at the Abarth on paper and see all the kit you need, probably, what that doesn’t show is just how cheap a lot of the interior feels. Comprised mostly of hard, dark, moulded plastic, this doesn’t feel like a ‘premium’ car. Nor an especially practical one. The covered storage between the front seats is fairly substantial, but the door pockets are shallow, there isn’t much rear space, and the boot is only average-sized for the class.

Again, two options, the standard car and the more powerful Scorpionissima. On paper the difference is 0.3 seconds precisely, with the base car hitting 62mph in 6.2 seconds and the special edition a third of a second less. It’s not a performance gulf – and both cars have the same torque figure, so they feel very similar off the line – but the limited-edition car has tangible mechanical upgrades that make it significantly more entertaining to drive. They’re worth the extra money, if you can live with the less comfy front seats. Either way, Abarth has done a sterling job making the 600e feel like a proper sporty car. The steering has genuine road feel and the brakes are powerful and consistent, which isn't always always the case in EVs. Even the scrabbly way that the tyres struggle for grip when you plant your foot to the floor, that never feels worrying but rather adds to the character of the car. Another Scorpionissimo addition is a sound generator that produces an ‘engine noise’ both inside and outside of the car. It’s an interesting novelty, and regardless of how ‘authentic’ you think it sounds, it does add drama to the act of accelerating – the audible drama that tends to be missing from the electric car experience.