Fiat 500 BEV Concept on Chrysler standard, 2010 Detroit Auto Show

Fiat 500 BEV Concept on Chrysler standard, 2010 Detroit Auto Show

What could be better than Chrysler bringing the Fiat 500 to American dealerships? Brining an all-electric version of the cute and very Italian car. Some of you may have seen my previous articles on the Nissan Leaf, another zero-emission all-electric, and might remember that Nissan feels very well positioned to be the leader in the market (more here). That is what the Fiat 500 EV is planned to change; Chrysler wants to show the “immediate benefits” of their alliance with the Fiat Group.

2010 Fiat 500 BEV

2010 Fiat 500 BEV

The 64,000-dollar question is: When will it hit the streets of America? The current answer is 2012, that is assuming that the world doesn’t come to an end or the alliance with Fiat ends up terminating. No prices have been announced yet, or really any other specific details other than it will compete with other electric vehicles in the market. As I mentioned previously, the Nissan Leaf has to be in their sites, as well as, the fairly well known MINI E.

This could either be a positive move for Chrysler or an Insight sized flop. The thing that is a little interesting is that there is no market testing of the Fiat 500 in the U.S. that I am aware of and certainly no real world testing of the EV that has been written about here. It would seem that Fiat and Chrysler aren’t in the same playing field as Nissan, MINI, Mitsubishi or even Ford—all of which have fleet test vehicles or contracts for large deployments of their production models.

I personally would love a Fiat 500 and if the EV version could go 100 miles on a single charge like the Nissan Leaf, it would certainly catch my attention.

 

Be sure to check out more details on the Fiat 500 EV over at our partner site, AllCarsElectric.com.