Fiat halts production of electric 500 due to lack of demand
The modern Fiat 500, which appeared in 2007, has demonstrated excellent longevity, with demand showing no signs of waning over the years. As proof, the neo-retro city car is still on the market in 2024, seventeen years after its launch.
Since 2020, Fiat has launched a new electric generation of its 500, which was ultimately intended to replace the thermal model. While its commercial debut was rather encouraging, the electric 500 does not follow in the footsteps of the thermal model and fails to maintain its appeal on the market. Because if the thermal mini-city car segment is one of those that evolves the slowest, which allows the 500 with internal combustion engine not to stand out too much in 2024, the market for electric cars is moving much faster.
If the electric 500 was relatively competitive when it was launched, this is no longer the case today. In France, it starts at €30,400 excluding bonuses, for a range of only 190 km. For comparison, the next Renault 5 E-Tech should be sold for €5,000 less at the entry level and with a range of around a hundred kilometres longer.
Sales plummet, worrying Mirafiori factory workers
As a result of this lack of competitiveness, sales of the electric Fiat 500 have been falling for several months, to the point where Fiat has been forced to pause production for at least four weeks, reports Automotive News EuropeThis is not the first time that the production lines at the Mirafiori plant in Turin have been shut down due to disappointing sales of the electric 500, as production interruptions had already taken place in June and July.
The production lines for the electric 500 are designed to assemble around 100,000 cars per year. However, Fiat has only sold 20,704 units of its electric city car in Europe from January to July 2024, according to Automotive News Europe. This represents a 42% drop compared to 2023. At this rate, sales of the electric 500 in Europe could reach only 35,000 units in 2024, far from the capacity of its production site.
This new interruption of production of the electric 500 comes at a time when the historic birthplace of the brand has been in a bad way for several years. The unions are asking Stellantis to assemble an affordable vehicle there in large volumes, in order to secure the future of the site. Currently, it only hosts the production of the electric Fiat 500 and that of Maserati models, whose sales are not very impressive either.
In a way, the unions will eventually win their case. Indeed, while Stellantis plans to upgrade the technical specifications of its electric 500, perhaps with LFP batteries that would lower prices, the group has also ultimately decided to release a micro-hybrid version. The thermal 500 that appeared in 2007 will thus finally be able to retire in a year or two, but the transition to the all-electric model has therefore been postponed.
