Fiat 600e Review & Prices

The Fiat 500e is a great city car, but what if you need a bit more space? Step forward the Fiat 600e - the Italian firm’s small, fully-electric SUV. It captures some of the charm and style that’s made the 500 so popular, but stretches it across a bigger body with much more interior room and - importantly - five doors.

Think of it like the 500’s older sibling. It’s not quite as cute to look at as the baby of the family, and might not get as much attention - but it’s a lot more useful when you need a helping hand.

The 600e may be bigger than the 500 but it’s still pretty small by SUV standards. Compared with alternatives such as the Peugeot e-2008, MG ZS EV or Carwow Car of the Year-winning Volvo EX30, it’s quite a bit smaller. It’s more like a jacked-up hatchback, having a similar footprint but higher roofline than cars such as the Vauxhall Corsa Electric.

Those tiny dimensions mean the 600e is fantastic for driving and parking in cramped towns and cities, and if you’re upgrading from a 500 it won’t feel intimidating or too bulky. Despite this, interior space is pretty good. The front seats have loads of room, and while the back seats are a bit too cramped for adults to get very comfortable they’re plenty spacious enough for a couple of child seats.

Fiat 600e: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 254 miles
Efficiency: 4.7mi/kWh
Battery size: 54kWh
Max charge speed: 100kW
Charge time AC: 7hrs 45 mins, 7kW
Charge time DC: 27 mins, 20-80%, 100kW
Charge port location: Rear left
Power outputs: 154hp

You do pay for that with the boot space, however, which at 360 litres is larger than most electric hatchbacks but smaller than just about every other comparable electric SUV.

Inside, there’s quite a lot to like. The 600e shares many of its components with its close sibling, the Jeep Avenger Electric, but adds in a dose of Italian style familiar to those who’ve sat in a 500. There’s a swooping shape to the dashboard and some shiny trim, plus a pleasing round housing over the instrument cluster.

It’s quite a trim-dependent interior, though, with posh La Prima cars getting light-coloured upholstery and trim that really lifts the cabin - while the darker trim of entry-level cars looks and feels a little cheap. There’s plenty of storage space with big door bins and adjustable cupholders, but the fabric flap that covers the central storage bin is just plain annoying.

The infotainment system is Fiat’s latest, and it’s based on a very wide but quite shallow display. It can be a bit awkward to use, and a little jerky to flick between menus - but the screen itself is high-res and the wireless smartphone connectivity works perfectly well, allowing you to bypass Fiat’s own system if you want to. 

There’s also a nice set of physical climate controls, which is much easier to operate on the move than having to head into a display sub-menu just to adjust the temperature.

On the road, the 600e is genuinely impressive especially considering its price. It soaks up bumps as well as any of its alternatives, and can make some much more expensive cars feel positively uncomfortable in comparison.

Dealing effortlessly with speed bumps and bad roads, plus super-light steering and good visibility means the Fiat 600e is a fantastic EV to drive around town. It’s comfortable on longer trips, too, though it doesn’t feel quite as stable and tied down as some alternatives and there’s a bit more noise on the motorway.

The 600e is available with just one motor and battery option at the moment. It officially offers 254 miles of range from a pretty modest battery capacity, and in our tests it proved impressively efficient - resulting in a real-world range of about 200 miles. Public charging from 20-80% takes less than half an hour, which is par for the course. If you’re not ready to make the switch to electric just yet, there's also a hybrid 600.

So the Fiat 600e is a decent small electric SUV overall – it’s a bit cheap inside and not hugely practical, but it’s packed full of character and is comfortable to drive around town. It’s priced temptingly, too.

Interested? Check out the latest Fiat 600e deals available through Carwow. You can also check out deals on other Fiat models, as well as browse used Fiats from our network of trusted dealers. When the time comes, you can sell your current car through Carwow, too.

The Fiat 600e starts at just under £33,000, which already makes it one of the more affordable electric SUVs. However, Fiat is currently offering a grant on its EVs to make them more tempting, dropping the price just below £30,000.

That makes the 600e great value, with the MG ZS EV the only electric SUV that can match it, while the MG4 – which is a hatchback but a similar size to the Fiat – starts at a bit less. Otherwise the closest alternative is the Citroen e-C4, which starts around £32,000, while everything else hovers around the £35,000 mark. Even the top-spec 600e is around £34,000 with the grant, compared with £40,000-plus for the likes of the Peugeot E-2008 and Vauxhall Mokka Electric.

There are just two trims, opening with Red models that have 16-inch steel wheels, fabric seat upholstery, cruise control and the infotainment touchscreen with a digital instrument display ahead of the driver. Upgrade to La Prima and you get more paint options, 18-inch alloy wheels, synthetic leather seats and adaptive cruise control.

Soft suspension and light steering make the Fiat 600e easy to drive around town, but it’s a bit noisy on the motorway

In town

The Fiat 600e is most at home being driven around the city. The suspension soaks up bumps really well, so you barely notice road imperfections as they pass by. You also get light steering to make tight manoeuvres a breeze and visibility is pretty good all around the car.

Unlike many electric cars, the 600e doesn’t pull away very quickly from a standstill, so it can be a bit tricky to nip out of busy junctions. However, once you’re on the move it’s more than quick enough. You can put the car into an ‘eco’ mode if you want to maximise range, but this does limit power quite a bit and makes the car feel rather sluggish.

You don’t get much assistance kit as standard, but upgrading to the La Prima trim adds parking sensors all around and a reversing camera.

On the motorway

Out on the motorway the Fiat 600e is comfortable to drive, soaking up bumps well, while the comfortable seats mean you should feel fresh after a long drive. However, it’s quite noisy once you’re up to speed, with noticeable roar from the tyres and a subtle whistle around the wing mirrors.

Once you’re on the move you generally won’t notice any lack of power from the motors, so you can pull off overtakes without too much planning ahead. Standard-fit cruise control is a nice touch, though upgrading to La Prima adds blind spot detection as well as an adaptive system that can maintain your distance to the car in front as well as nudge the wheel to keep you centred in your lane.

On a twisty road

Twisty roads are where the Fiat 600e is at its least enjoyable. Even if you engage the ‘sport’ mode, the steering is so light that it’s difficult to judge your inputs and make smooth, fast progress through a corner. It’s a similar story with the Volvo EX30, but that car’s sport mode makes the steering more natural and therefore more fun to point down a curvy road.

The 600e also struggles with the uneven road surfaces and larger undulations you often get on country roads. While the soft suspension deals well with sharp bumps around town, larger yumps and bumps cause the car to wobble about a lot, so it can feel like you’re being chucked side to side on particularly poor stretches.

Space is generally decent in the Fiat 600e’s cabin, but alternatives offer more boot space

Front seat passengers will be the happiest of those travelling in the Fiat 600e. It’s not exactly cavernous, but it is roomy enough that even taller drivers won’t feel the need to take a deep breath before folding themselves into the seats. There’s a fairly good range of adjustability in the steering wheel and seat, and you feel like you sit quite high with a good view out over the bonnet.

Storage is decent enough, with door bins that will hold a 500ml bottle, though nothing bigger, while there’s a pair of cupholders between the front seats with movable slats for different sizes of container, which is useful. What’s less useful is the half-size glovebox, which you can’t fit much in. There’s also a large bin beneath the drive buttons that has two USB slots and a 12V socket, though it’s covered by an odd flap that’s really awkward to use with one hand.

Space in the back seats

The Fiat 600e is quite a small car, so space in the back seats isn’t huge. However, there’s just about enough room for a six-footer to sit behind another six-footer, though your knees will probably rest on the seat in front. There’s plenty of headroom too, though three passengers would be a real squeeze. There’s foot space for three, but the central seat isn’t comfortable or very wide, so you’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder with the passengers on either side.

Storage is virtually non-existent, with no door bins and only pockets in the back of the seat in front to put anything. You do get a USB-C slot, though.

There’s space for a child seat, and the ISOFIX mounting points are easy to access behind zips in the seat upholstery. However, particularly bulky seats will require the seat in front to be pushed forward, which can make it really uncomfortable for your passenger.

With all that said, you’ll find rear seat space tight in pretty much all of the alternatives to the 600e. If you need room in the back, an MG4 could be your best bet, or if your budget can stretch to it, the Hyundai Kona Electric is very roomy.

Boot space

The Fiat 600e has a 360-litre boot with all the seats in place. That’s on the small side, with the Peugeot E-2008 and MG ZS EV having the biggest boots here at 435 and 480 litres respectively. The Fiat does have more space than the 310 litres in the Vauxhall Mokka Electric and 318 litres in the Volvo EX30, though.

Accessing the boot is easy with a fairly low bumper and very minimal lip to lift items over. There are a couple of hooks to stop bags rolling around as you drive, and you can lift the floor to reveal a shallow area that’s useful for storing charging cables.

Folding the rear seats opens 1,231 litres, which puts it in the middle of the pack among alternatives and actually outperforms the MG ZS EV. With the seats folded there’s only a slight slope so it’s easy to push big, heavy items in.

You get comfy seats in the Fiat 600e, but the rest of the interior feels a bit cheap

Although the Fiat 600e has a characterful design inside and out, it’s inside where you start to see where the cost-cutting appears to have been made. Some of the materials, such as on the doors of the La Prima model, have an interesting texture, but pretty much everything else is either shiny or scratchy plastic.

The synthetic leather seat upholstery is soft and comfortable though, and both this and the entry-level model’s fabric seats have a cool Fiat logo design in the cushions.

Tech doesn’t do much to elevate the interior ambience either, and actually feels a bit old school. The main infotainment display is a 10.25-inch touchscreen that’s tiny compared with most alternatives. The menu design is simple but the screen is quite laggy to respond to your touch, and you have to use a physical button below the screen to get back to the home display each time. It’s a bit clunky switching between the two, though if you use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto it works more smoothly.

There’s also a 7.0-inch digital instrument display behind the wheel, and although it’s clear and displays all the basic information you need, it looks a little lost in the circular housing.

The presence of those chunky buttons is generally a good thing, though. The climate settings are controlled through a bank of switches beneath the screen and they’re super-easy to use on the move, while the steering wheel buttons are intuitive to learn so you can make changes without glancing down at all. There’s a driver assistance shortcut button too, which is useful if you want to quickly turn off any intrusive aids.

There’s just the one battery and motor combination available with the Fiat 600e. You get a 154hp electric motor that’s good for a 0-60mph time of 9.0 seconds, which reflects the leisurely rate at which it accelerates out on the road.

The official range from the 54kWh battery is 254 miles, and this is similar to electric alternatives you might consider at this price. It’s also usefully more than the 214 miles you get on the entry-level Volvo EX30. Our test indicated a real-world range of around 200 miles is likely to be more realistic.

Charge speeds are decent, with public charging up to 100kW allowing you to go from 20-80% charge in 27 minutes. The Fiat 600e also comes with AC home charging up to 11kW, which not many alternatives offer, and would let you completely refill the battery in less than six hours. (Though most homes can only charge up to 7kW.)

Because it’s a zero-emission vehicle, the Fiat 600e benefits from not having any Vehicle Excise Duty to pay until 2025, while company car drivers get rock-bottom benefit-in-kind rates.

The Fiat 600e has not yet been through safety testing with Euro NCAP yet, and the only other Fiat model to be rated in recent years is the 500e, so it’s difficult to speculate whether this new model will get a similar four-out-of-five rating.

What we do know is that the 600e only comes with some of the more basic assistance kit, such as automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning, as standard. Upgrading to La Prima models adds blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control with lane centring.

Fiat’s reputation for reliability isn’t fantastic, and the petrol-powered 500 hatchback is known for having quite a few problems. Things seem to be a bit better with the 500 Electric, which might offer some reassurance for the 600e.

The standard warranty is three years with unlimited mileage, which is similar to what most car makers offer, though some do put mileage limits in place. Both the MG ZS and MG4 come with a hugely impressive seven-year/80,000-mile warranty, though.