@@Angryeddie14 Very reliable. I have no complaints really. It’s hard to say how long the battery pack will hold out, but up to this point it’s been great. I keep mine in a garage and just charge overnight from the simple charger that came with it. As of yet, I have not noticed any real drop off in range.
Bought a second hand one last Saturday here in Canada, imported from California and now zero warranty. Price tag: $18,500 + taxes is huge compared to what US pays for these used ones. However, I am very happy with this car, Grey Metalic with Orange accents, love it. I couple details that I don't like: Shoulder check is hard to do with fat B and C style, they are blocking out a lot of what's behind you. Even the rear view mirror view is blocked by third brake light in the center. I am 6' and I can not see any cars behind me who are farther away. When your side window is open and you spray your windshield water runs inside over the door panel. Other than that, amazing car. 15" rims soon. Thank you for this great review. Watched it before my purchase and now again. You helped me decide.
If you get this reply...I am thinking of importing one into Canada as well. Was there anything particularly hard with respect to having the car comply with Canadian standards?
@@johnnyzee383 Most used dealerships have already started importing and selling them in Canada (i'm in Vancouver) so you could check to see your local craigslist to see if any are for sale. But if you want to import one yourself, I don't think there is anything that needs to be done with the car other than getting it inspected by a license shop and having the DRL and everything changed to KMs.
If wanna increase mileage on your fiat 500e Set cruise control to 25 mph then drive above that speed .when you step off gas pedal it will slow car to 25 again use motor to slow car down intern charges more. Use watt meter to verify morewatt too battery on deceleration..
only when on 2G-GSM networks. pretty rare these days when a modern LTE phone drops down to a network so inferior. I also used an external lapel microphone from Audio Technica here, which is where the EMI came from. I'm aware of what did it, I was unwilling to redo the video to get rid of it.
Hello from Ukraine! Bought for my fiat500E abarth weels in Italy 17". You have made changes to the car or your Orange disks have been installing without problems? What size tires do you use?
Good morning! the wheels are Sparco Asetto Gara in red. the bolt pattern is 4x100, but they use hubcentrics and wobble bolts (eccentric center cone bolts) they work great. Tires are 205/40-17 Riken Raptor ZR
Ovalbore, I'm thinking of switching from my aging 99' jetta tdi to one of these. my concern is that My commute is 55 miles 1 way. I can charge at work but its 120v. in you're experience do you think that 110 miles a day with 90% 60mph flat roads is doable?
GhiaSteve89 you really would need level 2 charging at work to make this viable. I think 110 figures a 60% city mix using regen. all highway a conservative 75-85 miles at 60 in reasonable weather. the 110v charger will only net you about 32 miles during a full work shift
Great review. So much so I bought one myself. Those wheels look great. The one thing I'd like to do with mine. You mentioned in one of the posts below you did notice a drop in mileage. Do you know approximately how much range you lost? Also you stated they were 17x7 wheels. What size tires are you running and did they affect the speedometer much, if at all, or, is the lower profile, with the larger wheel, equivalent to the stock ? Thanks for the video.
@@OvalboreCars Thank-you for the response. What size tires are you running may I ask ? I saw the wheels you mentioned are 17x7 what tire size are you using ? Obviously a 17". What sidewall and width are you running?
Getting one next month using my tax refund (down payment) in no small part, due to your video. My commute is 31 miles each way, 50/50 highway and winding country back roads, and can plug in the travel charger at work. Will have a 220 level 2 put in the house. My payment will be roughly $150/mo. I currently spend exactly $150/mo on my commute gas, so basically a free car. Thank you for the info, and the shotgun ride along.
Awesome to hear! That distance is pretty much maxing out the battery range in temperatures 40 degrees and above with highway though, not a lot of safety margin if theres a colder day you need heat in the car. surface streets, that distance should be no problem. can you plug in (Even Level1) at work? the 500E is a great car, I hope you enjoy it and it fits your needs.
Dirty Blond as electrifying of a Avatar you have do you have to charge your car still?Like us normal people! It's just a complement you are striking. And I'm a farmboy from West Tennessee. I have six 2000 Honda insight. I'm also an inventor my experimental car of mine gets 150 mpg at 50 mph. It's gasoline only. I deleted the battery and took it out. It's not efficient to charge a battery with gasoline money. Here's looking at you kid.!Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca). ---------------privately ---WOW!!!(I actually talked to her)!!!!!
Kudos from Texas!!! out of all the reviews that have been posted on the 500e, you are the only caster who touched upon the much needed subject on how using the Heater or the AC affects the autonomy. It was the number one concern on my part. I leave in Houston Texas, and for the most part of the year, you need to have the AC on in your car. There is simply no way you can get by without it. From what I get from your video, you just have to switch on the AC before you take your trip, and your autonomy takes it into account. You can alleviate the Heater draw by using the heated seats, but there is no solution for the AC. Thanks again!
Absolutely, the 'pre-cool' will take your car from 100+ degrees inside to 74 or whatever you set it to off of the Level 2 wall plug, using no main HV battery, and the maintenance power to keep it at 74.. if you don't have tinted windows is likely no more than 1kW, or 500W or so with tinted glass. heated seats don't do much when you're below 30 degrees, and you usually have to run climate to keep windows from icing over as well.
@@OvalboreCars wow! that is something so important to know... being able to pre-heat or pre-cool the car before you actually have to make the trip, while still connected to the charger is a very important information. Not even the dealers I spoke to are aware of that possibility. Thanks again!
Both the heat and the AC run off of the high voltage system and luckily that system is allowed to direct draw current from the L2 charger built in to the car.
@@OvalboreCars Thanks to your review, I am now finally certain the 500e can work for me here in Houston. The "87" miles official range, minus the AC loss, about 8 miles, still is compatible with my daily errands. And again, another invaluable information from your cast, is that purchasing higher mileage should not be an issue. So I am looking at cars with a 30/40 kmiles range, that are listed around the $7k mark. My biggest problem, is that almost none of them are available in Texas, and I will have to get them transported....
This is an excellent and knowledgeable review of the 500e. It's great to hear from an experienced mechanic, that an EV is actually good. Would you consider working on EVs, swapping motors, upgrading controllers, replacing batteries?
Thank you! Glad it was informative. Absolutely. I've already been researching the pack to see just what is needed to get the battery management controller to talk to a second set of 24KwH batteries from a totaled out 500e. Alas, they're so heavy it's pretty absurd to consider. Increasing power output off the line is something I'm most interested in as that limiting torque is annoying!
Check out John Wayland's '72 Datsun conversion aka the White Zombie. He might have some pointers on which batteries, controllers, motors to use. www.plasmaboyracing.com/
haha would be sweet.. but my main goal would be to retain all the factory BMS/inverter if possibe. maybe putting a second full driveline in some day in the rear.
Samsung (manufacturer of the battery cells) makes cells in the same form factor as the factory cells in the 500e that have about 45% more capacity, (63ah vs 93ah). Might be an option as far as upgrading, same size cells, hooked up to the factory BMS and you’d get well over 100mi of range. They also build 120ah cells I believe, but not 100% sure on the dimensions of those without doing a little more research... Edit: upgrading to the 93ah cells would only add about 25lbs
I wish my 500S was an e! Such a great corner car and my drive to work is epic fun, this would top it off. Done 100,000km already but the transmission (dualogic) gives me the sh!ts and this would require so much less maintenance.
I'm using the generic 'Lo' lowering springs for a standard 500 sport from eBay. the dealer I bought it from doesn't deal in these cars, they just happened to have one on the lot.
I know since this video is a little dated by now this comment might be lost, but as someone currently in the market for a 500e in MN, which dealer were you referring to near the end of the video who buys and resells the off lease models? (Thanks in advance from a fellow Minnesotan!)
Great job on the video. It's very informative and I like what you have done with your car. I live in NB, Canada, and I am highly interested in buying one next spring and importing it to Canada as a summer only car. My question is about the ball hitch you installed for towing. I understood that all EV cars other then the Tesla X could not tow and therefore hitch kits were not created for them. How did you find a Curt hitch kit that fit your 500e? How much weight have you towed? How safe is it to tow? How badly did it affect your mileage range? It sure would be great to be able to tow my small 4'x6' 200lb trailer especially when I want to get tires changed, because there is so little storage space in the hatch. (I put my wheelchair in the back seat.)
the X is rated for 3000kG or so.. EVs tow considerably better than their combustion brethren since theres no transmission to overheat. the hitch is a standard fiat 500 hitch. Fiat will also sell you one at the dealer parts department. it's rated for 1500lbs/150lb tongue weight but its a class 1 hitch in reality, so safely the hardware can handle 3500lbs/350lbs. I've towed just over 2000lbs and probably 200-300lb tongue weight with the electric, and a bit more with my old gas 500. more than halves the range typically towing un aerodynamic things, heavy items not so bag. hatch can fit 2 full sets of fiat 500 wheels and tires behind front seats.
My only complaint about this car is that there were so few made that 3rd party battery packs are probably not going to be available, so you are stuck with the super expensive Fiat ones. I love my 2016 500e. By far the funnest driving car I have owned.
I'd counter that with its great that is uses relatively standard Samsung SDI cells like the i3 and i8 which were revised twice. If you were motivated, you could swap in the much higher capacity cells.
thanks for the detailed review! I'm thinking of buying one 2013 Fiat 500e. Excellent review! ps: I'm in WI . next door to you. Do you use it the electric in the winter ?
I have a fiat 500e but having trouble finding a charging station out in public. I came across a few EVGO stations but the charger don’t fit my car. Do I need an adapter for a level 2?
I have yet to see anyone really go over 100 miles from a full charge. What the guessOmeter states after full charge really means nothing. I do know however that the Chevy Spark can go about 90 miles on HWY! as it has been tested. I get about 70 miles (so give or take 10-15 miles on top of that before shutting down?) before the low battery warning comes on. I have calculated that my usable kWH is around 18-18.5. Don't think it's suffered from degradation though. Has about 31K miles on her.
I have 2014 model and were able to change units to mi/khw instead of MPGe. Also, under the hood there are two cooling containers - one for interior and one for battery (not both for battery). TomTom shows mostly same stuff as car, except energy usage - shows how much kw is every part using - motor, climate control and other (e.x. stereo, lights and so on). Regen is always at max (100%) up to same power as motor (I saw over 80kw on hard break in HW) unless ABS kicks in - then it should switch to friction (never experienced yet) and when car is going slower than 8mph (you can feel when technologies switch, especially when breaks are cold)
I know you are probably in the midwest or North but how much does the range seem to suffer in hotter temps? would drive 20 miles to work at 75mph in 100-115 most of the time. Wondering if this would be a good option.
Ov thanks for the informative video. I'm interested in lowering and adding some rims to my E. Can you recommend springs and rims set up? I guess the noise which I don't hear are the fatter tires. I was thinking of cutting rear stock spring one coil ring and in the front quarter coil. They don't make lowering spring that work well with the heavier rear battery weight of the e. I like the red rims. I have the same color E in esport. Thanks
the 500 madness e specific springs and some Koni yellows is the way to go. I went the $160 route and put in gas springs, no shock or strut change. the ride isn't Awful.. but its not great. this color was 2013 only, eSport started in 14, so you might have grey, but it's not Grigio.
@@OvalboreCars yes it's a 2015 Granito Lucente color, purchase off lease in June. Read mix reviews on the forums with the madness springs being too soft in the rear and possibly too low/aggressive. If the Kona fix the bounce pogo stick effect then may consider. Cheers and thanks.
@@OvalboreCars so getting bump stops with yellow koni shocks in the back plus abarth shocks in the front would complete the lowering then? I just want it all in 1 go. thanks for your help. nice car!
OC Fiat had them for $49/month on lease a few months ago. Minimal up-front that mostly goes away once you account for incentives. Had an LA dealership match the rate. The hardest part was fiddling around with the insurance because it's based off the $32k sticker price; even after optimizing that the insurance wound up being being more than the lease.
More than the lease; about $90 a month (I pay the whole six months up front for the pre-pay discount) with Progressive. This is with fiddling around with all the various toggles they gave you, while just sticking within the insurance requirements the dealership gave me. (The two big things were guessing low on annual mileage and fiddling around with my deductible; I settled on a $500 deductible.) Also everywhere else it was way more expensive, more like $200 a month. (I nearly didn't get the car because of how absurd the insurance rates were with every other company.) Even though I gave a 2,000 miles per estimate that at this rate, if anything, I'm more likely to come in under than over on.
(I really do think you get screwed by the combo of the ~$32k sticker price and the car being relatively esoteric since it's a compliance car; I wouldn't be shocked if it turned out that a national-distribution car like the Leaf tends to have more reasonable insurance rates. I also think insurance is often a lot more forgiving if you have a multi-car policy; for me it's my only car so the sticker-shock of the insurance rates was 0_o.)
2013-2014: same as video 2015: new center console cupholders & aux/usb (was in glove box on 2013-2014), 2016-2018: new radio with display (no more TomTom) that also has BT audio.
Looks great. You mention you use the 'generic' lo lowering springs - are these the Eibach? Can you post a link to the product? Seems like you hit just the right amount of lowering for 17" wheels. WRT milage have you tried 195/40 instead of the 205 tires? Final question, do the 7x17 wheels just fit or did you need spacers? I think I found the wheels at tire rack if I am not mistaken: tinyurl.com/y4r7jhqt
@@OvalboreCars I am unable to find them :-(. Did they say how much the drop is? I see sets giving 1.4" back and 1" front. That seems about right but it might be deceiving given the much larger rims.
@@OvalboreCars I am unable to find the lowering springs. Are there other keywords that identify them on ebay? I see mostly Vogtland and Eibach from different sellers.
Be incredibly careful. A lot of Fiat dealers that are not in California or Oregon do not even have an electric tech employed at their dealers. If you need dealer support and there isn’t one in your area, it’s up to you to figure out how to get the car there and if it’s more than the range of the car... lol good luck. I highly DO NOT recommend having a 500e outside of California or Oregon due to lack of support in the rest of the country.
I called my local Fiat dealer (8 miles away), prior to purchase, and they said they service the 500e. Another dealer about 30 away also services them. I should be good to go 😁 I’m curious as to how it will do this winter. My commute is 2 miles...I’ll be good either way...this car is mainly for a fun 2nd car. My main car is an Acadia Denali....not so fun to drive, all the time. Lol.
Thanks! luckily another commenter a few months ago told me it can be changed when the car is in park with ignition on! I do cover that error in my winter follow up video, but always glad to get correct information!
So there’s a way to “regen” using the cruise control feature. Set cruise control is set to 25 and go. Once you lift of the accelerate, the car will “regenerate” without using the disc brakess. I do not know if this puts any extra stress on the car though. And it’s only really effective on longer roads with low traffic and higher speeds
I’m debating. A friend has a 2018 with 14k miles. I have 3 cars. A 15 Scion XB I drive most of the time, and that’s only 3000 miles a year. It gets a yearly synthetic oil change. Thats $70. It hasn’t had a since issue since buying in 2020, and has only 47k miles. Well built, no loose anything. I spend about $60 a month on gas. A 2000 Cabrio I only drive 6-700 miles in summer. Insurance is $120 every 6 months for full coverage and same with my 92 VW GTI 16v I’ve owned since 98. Not a lot of big spending. I could sell the convertible (as much as I love our short summers with it) because at least there’s the SR in his car. If it’s under $6500, I may consider it. I’m just concerned with overall build quality, long term ownership (I keep my cars 10 or more years) I don’t want it to be a paper weight when something like a battery failure takes place. If I could swap a $3000 new battery like Nissan is offering past its 10 yr warranty, I’d feel better. I’m assuming not the case with this car? Use wise, my needs.. it would be more than enough with 80 miles range. I seldom drive over 30 miles a day. I have concerns about crash test results. I’m not sure I can get the tax incentives in OR buying privately.
I run 240v in to my oem 500e charger and it'll charge at level 2. No modification needed to the charger. Just have to get the proper 240v male plug end at the hardware store and wire it up to a 110v female. It can handle 240v no problem cost me about $15 for the plug because I used an old cut up heavy duty 110v extension cord sitting around. Registration is insanely high though in California. I paid about $450 last year. Also, do NOT allow the car to roll in neutral, you know to like let it roll backwards down your driveway a few feet. The car will shut off and disable itself. Then you're sitting for the next 5 minutes cycling the key off and on, pressing Drive button each time until it finally resets itself. And you can't rotate tires front to back unless you remove the 2 rotor studs, rim width is supposed to be different but it works just fine, actually get better handling. It eats front tires though, I'm always to the floor when I drive it. I got down to about 50% front tread in 5000 miles. Oh and in the next "updated" version like my 17, you can disable creep.
common mod in EU, kind of silly in the USA though since cheap 16A L2s are everywhere and the emergency charger is nice to retain with 5-15 plug on it. you can roll it in neutral with the door open, but yeah occasionally if below a certain speed, it'll kick it in to park. you don't have to cycle the key a bunch. turn ignition off, lock car. wait for the audible contactor click (5-10 sec) then unlock and key car back on. clears service propulsion errors. you can rotate the tires, you cannot rotate the factory wheels since they're different widths (or if you're like me and just get square wheels, then you can rotate if you so choose. good note on later firmware allowing creep disable at least..
How far u can go max with full charge when its around 30 degrees out side on highway i m buying one soon i live in buffalo n sometimes its gets crazy cold here
30 isnt that cold, but I'd say it's unlikely you'd ever get lower than 35 miles in a single highway trip on the coldest days. once you hit 40 degrees, you dont even really need the heat, so you get up in to the 45-55 mile range, once you stop using climate and battery management 65-75 miles is realistic.
What rims do you have on the fiat and where did u get them from as well as where did you get the suspension to lower it I will be getting one in a couple of days same color n interior
FYI, if you’ve still got the car, the company I work for may be rolling out a DC Fast charging kit (ChaDeMO) for this car within the next year or so. We currently build kits for 3 other cars, the RAV4 EV, Mercedes B250e, and the OG Tesla Roadster. If you want to check it out the company is Quick Charge Power. Not sure on exact timelines, but we should be beginning development in the near future. Edit: just saw you posted a video with the car 3 weeks ago, so I guess you do still have it! I’m thinking about getting one myself for daily driving, and possibly renting out on Turo.
@@OvalboreCars The ChaDeMO Port will more than likely go under the hood as it does on our Rav4 EV and Mercedes B-Class kits, finding space in the 500e may be a bit of challenge though. We use ChaDeMO because it FAR outnumbers CCS connectors worldwide (I think over 20,000 worldwide now with 2,500 in the US). ChaDeMO is also standard worldwide, where the CCS connectors are different between the US and EU. Even if CCS begins to overtake, ChaDeMO is not going anywhere, there are literally hundreds of thousands of cars that use the standard (well over half a million if you include Tesla S and X as compatible with the ChaDeMO adapter). CCS is also not available in as many countries. You'd be surprised how many of our kits go to places like Jordan, Ukraine, and the like where CCS is non-existent, and we sell hundreds of kits in Europe, particularly in Norway.
@@OvalboreCars According to Plugshare ChaDeMO actually outnumbers CCS in your area (Minneapolis correct?), not by much, 24 vs. 20 locations. The area I searched ranges from Monticello to St. Paul from east to west, and Elk River to Burnsville north to south. That's the way it tends to be in most places, it is either on par, or outnumbers CCS. Most locations that have CCS also have ChaDeMO, but not all locations that have ChaDeMO have CCS. Not to say that CCS isn't continuing to grow, but so is ChaDeMO. There are hundreds of thousands of cars that use ChaDeMO (over half a million in fact), so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. (Edit: upon doing a bit of research, here's the approximate number of cars currently on the road that use ChaDeMO. worldwide: Nissan Leaf: 364,000 Mitsubishi Outlander Plug in: 172,000 US only (couldn't find other sales data): Kia Soul EV: 6,500 Mitsubishi i-MiEV: 1,900 Plus some unknown number of cars sold in foreign markets that have ChaDeMO instead of CCS due to market availability. Such as for example the BMW i3 in Japan, and the Hyundai Ioniq in Chile (and possibly other cars in other markets as well). As well as the now hundreds of thousands of Tesla Model S & X that can use a ChaDeMO adapter (Model 3 has yet to be updated to be compatible).
But the biggest question I have, and thousands of other potential would be buyers of this model is: What happens to the battery range as the car accumulates more and more miles? Can I expect for example the same 91 maximum miles range on a full charge for the 2017 500E under ideal conditions, when the used model I buy for $8,000 now with 25,000 miles, (going market price out of Southern California where there is a huge supply right now ) when the electric car's has say 100,000 miles over the next 4 years?)
Rapid charging causes quicker overall battery degradation, and when these batteries are done giving you miles you're looking at replacing them for way more than the car is worth. It would only be good having the special rapid charge port you mentioned, for emergencies. I enjoyed your review. thank you
not true at all. super high kW level 3 can to an extent though. Level 2, especially 30A and the limited usable capacity.. you'd never have any issues beyond a regular 15A Level 1
@@OvalboreCars they've done comparisons between level 2 and level 3 and the effect isn't as much as they thought but it is still a small amount of extra degradation. If someone leases the vehicle go for it level 3 all you want but if you purchase to extend across the span of ten years .. you might not want to be excessive with it. That's my point..
holy cow you payed a decent price for that car! is that some kinda cali incentive or something? this might be my way into ev ownership lol. but my farthest contract is 40miles from home. but its at a near a nissan so its a charger there.
The lack of DC fast charging is this car's main failing. That one option would have made all the world of difference. (And it was a bummer that Fiat never really updated the battery over its life...until the 2020 model year, which gets a HUGE increase in range and DC fast charging but will only be available in Europe). Still, if you, like most people, drive less than 30 miles per day on average then even this short range compliance car will do the trick 90% of the time.
Ovalbore I found one here and the guys is asking $6800 with 52k miles. I may see if I can get him down to $5.5k. I’m just not sold yet. I really want an small SUV with 4x4. This is pretty much opposite- but I’m not ready to shell out the money for the car I actually want. This seams like it could be a fun toy for a couple years while I save up a bit more and let the prices come down on other used vehicles.
Using oem 500e charger at 110v it takes me about 24 hours from dead. Using the same stock charger but plugged into my 240v outlet, it says about 11 hours. Yes you read that right.
I'm thinking about buying one, there's a company that has been importing over 100 of these cars to Finland. They go around $16000 here but there's very little competition in the second hand market.
maintainace you spent on it soo far ? please i bought a 2015 fiat 500e with 3800 miles for $10,000 sence march been no problems going into my first indana winter ..dont know what to expect
$0 so far -- car is under warranty shouldn't need much beyond regular wear items like brakes, bearings, etc. I dont expect much of anything prior to 100,000 miles
Looking at a 2014 for 7k USD with 70k miles ... seems like I should go look at it. Need a city car only. My Subaru doesn't like short jaunts in the city ... ha ha.
wait lithium polymer battery's i think that this would be the first electric car with those types of battery's. most electric cars use the 18650s which are lithium ion battery's
these are lithium nickel cobalt I believe. they're Samsung SDI prismatic cells. Tesla uses 18650. Nissan, Chevy use pouch type Li-Po cells, BMW and Fiat use prismatic LiNCo I believe.
That's good news. I suspect that if it were widely available the 500e would be immensely popular and Fiat know this but need to protect sales of their petrol cars.
What they really need is a gen II 500, a 33+kWh 500e would be a great companion as well, but the current body is 10 years old now with zero revision except new tail lamps and bumpers.
I was gonna comment about how dirt cheap gas in the US makes buying EVs nonsensical but then you mentioned your dirt cheap electricity and now it all makes sense.
