So much for ‘all-electric’ – Fiat 500e may come with a gas engine
Stellantis-owned Fiat has had high hopes for its all-electric Fiat 500, available in the US, but now a report says that the company may backtrack due to low demand and add an ICE version to the lineup.
Earlier this month, Fiat reportedly asked suppliers for quotes to bump up production of the 500e at Stellantis’s Miafiori factory in Turin, Italy, to 175,000 units a year from the 77,260 that were made last year, reports Automotive News Europe.
Turns out, of that total, 100,000 units would be ICE models, but all this was supposed to be very hush-hush since Fiat hasn’t formally decided on the move. News of the switch was first reported by Il Corriere della Sera and then confirmed by Automotive News Europe.
This is strange, unexpected news, because it’s unusual to convert an EV to a gas engine, and the company already sells an ICE 500, built in Poland and a slightly smaller car that predates the 500e by more than a decade. And the 500e was expected to help push the company toward its emissions goals. Fiat has set the target of being an electric-only brand by 2030.
The argument is that adding in a gas model of the 500e to Mirafiori could smooth over union concerns about “declining volumes of the 500e” and help the company meet Italy’s goal of maintaining the country’s auto production at no fewer than 1 million cars per year, with Stellantis bearing the brunt of that demand being the only volume manufacturer in Italy. Fiat has already cut one of two shifts at Mirafiori last month due to slow sales, laying off some 2,250 workers, with more than half of those affected working on the 500e.
Of course, Fiat’s home turf of Italy has some of the lowest EV adoption rates in Europe, at just 4% of the market. But the far-right Italian government is working to change that, by weighing a plan to invest €930 million ($1 billion) into some enticing financial incentives to nudge drivers toward electric cars. But this hasn’t happened yet, and some Italian shoppers may be waiting for those incentives to be put into action before making the switch – so the automaker enjoys so no home court advantage here.
According to the report, we could see a mild-hybrid 500e – which would be powered by the same 1-liter, 70 hp FireFly gas engine used in Fiat’s Panda minicar, as soon as late 2025 or early 2026.
While Fiat was set to cut production of its current ICE 500 in Poland at the end of next month, that model would move to Fiat’s new Algerian factory, which has a capacity of 90,000 units a year. The model, which would not be compliant with European homologation rules, will be sold in the Middle East and Africa only, reports Automotive News Europe.
If the project is approved, it could take about 18 to 24 months to build the 500e to accept a gasoline engine. The outgoing ICE model currently starts at €17,700 in Italy, with the 500e starting at €29,950, so an ICE version of the 500e is expected to fill that gap.
Fiat is one of the most popular European brands, but Stellantis has had its work cut out for it with the recent launch of the Fiat 500e in the US, Stellantis’s first all-electric vehicle in the US market. The price tag starts at $32,500 plus a $1,595 destination fee, with not much of a solid reputation to back that up for Americans. The car is designed too for the upmarket, trendy urban driver who doesn’t mind the 149-mile range on that price. But of course, Fiat sold practically no cars in the US – a grand total of 605 cars. It sold so few cars in the US that it is now discontinuing the few models it had on offer and going on all in on the 500e.
Photos: Fiat’s new 2024 500e (Source: Stellantis)
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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