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By Jonathan Crouch

In Hybrid form, the second modern-era version of Fiat's little 500 is a rather different confection. Jonathan Crouch takes a look.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 48

The second modern-era Fiat 500 was originally meant to be EV-only. Now though, you can also have it as a petrol mild hybrid. The modestly-powered engine is as familiar as the cheeky looks - which, together with budget pricing, is what Fiat hopes will sell you this car.

Backgroundword count: 265

The modern-era Fiat 500 was the car that saved its brand. Launched in 2007, it sold in millions over the next decade as the Turin management tried to figure out how to replace it. Their answer as it turned out, was an enormous and hugely costly mistake that has threatened the very future of this famous marque. Introducing the second generation 500 as an EV was a logical step. But not bothering to also introduce a combustion Hybrid version - or even design the structure of the car around the possibility of one - was an astonishing blunder. With predictable results. The 500 EV was too expensive for most 500 loyalists to afford, even if they'd wanted to make the switch to electric, which many of them didn't. On top of that, with EV subsidies being phased out in many European countries, 500 EV production at the famous Mirafiori plant in Turin had to keep stopping because dealers simply couldn't sell the cars it was making. Realising its mistake too late, Fiat tried to keep the old 500 going into this century's third decade as a mild hybrid, but trying to sell a design almost two decades old was a losing battle and the Italian management eventually had to take the car off sale on 2024 due to the model's non-compliance with new EV cybersecurity laws. All of which led to the almost unprecedented decision to try and retrofit the original modern-era 500 model's EV platform to accept a combustion engine. The resulting car, the 500 Hybrid, is what we're going to look at here.

Driving Experienceword count: 373

Once they'd decided that the second modern-era 500 should also have a combustion powerplant, the headaches for the Fiat engineers began. The conversion required near-total redevelopment of the car, with new subframes added to the front and back to accommodate a petrol engine and associated transmission. And a fuel tank was inserted in the space used by the traction battery in the EV. Then the question was which engine this petrol/electric 500 should have. The obvious choice was the 1.2-litre Stellantis unit used in the Grande Panda Hybrid, but that wouldn't fit - and anyway couldn't be matched with manual transmission and would have made the car too expensive. Because developing a bespoke Hybrid unit for this car would have been too costly, the only other option available was the rather ancient Firefly 1.0-litre three cylinder unit used by the previous generation model. This had been updated at the end of the last decade with a 12V starter generator mild hybrid system, before being slightly tweaked in 2024 for the Italian market Panda. This powertrain was never particularly fizzy in the previous 500 and get-up-and-go is restricted further here by this second modern era model's greater weight and the fact that output has fallen by 5 braked horses to just 64bhp. For perspective, a rival Toyota Aygo Hybrid X has 114bhp. So you won't be surprised to learn that acceleration in this Fiat is glacial, 0-62mph needing 16.2s in the three-door and 17.3s in the convertible. A non-hybrid rival like the Kia Picanto has a closer output - 67bhp - but uses it to get to 62mph over 2 seconds quicker. Top speed in this 500 Hybrid is 96mph. To be fair, you properly won't feel that slow around town because most of the engine's low-down grunt is available from just 2,000rpm. The mild hybrid system offers a light boost at this point, but apart from that, all it does is power the start/stop system. There's only one transmission choice and, unusually for a modern car, it's a manual, with six speeds. An auto would have been too expensive to engineer. What this Hybrid does borrow from its EV cousin is more sophisticated suspension, so you'll clump over urban potholes a lot less.

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