CAR Magazine
#Abarth #500e #EV
Abarth is a manufacturer famous for its small, loud hot hatches. But how do you recreate that in an EV? Easy, strap a massive speaker to the back and play engine sounds through it. James Dennison heads to Italy to find out if there’s substance below that extravagant exterior.
Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:11 – Sound actuator
0:52 – Exterior walkaround
3:16 – Interior
3:50 – Driving
9:31 – Range and charging
10:29 – Verdict
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Can a hot hatch be all-electric? Let us know what you think…
This Abarth is disappointing, and its fake ICE sounds tell us in no uncertain terms that Abarth considers them essential to the enthusiast experience. Whether they are or not is subjective, but I think we have to accept that electric cars are either silent to the occupants or sound like an electric motor. However, they give at least one compensation, which is instant torque.
My personal opinion is that most ICE engines and their sounds are nothing to write home about. I only lament what I consider the unnecessary looming loss of truly great sounding ICE engines, like the Ferrari and Lambo V12s, the Audi/Lambo V10, Ferrari V8s, the great BMW straight sixes, and some V6s.
Otherwise, I think there;s nothing for fear of EVs in and of themselves. They are far too expensive. But they have the potential to be very cheap and mobilise even more people.
The problem is that Western governments seem opposed to the very mobilization of the masses that EVs could deliver, along with increased social/socio-economic mobility. Instead, in the West the promotion of the EV seems a pretext to severely increased costs of ownership of personal cars and getting most people out of personal car ownership and all of the social and socio-economic limits and losses that would bring with it. But by that time they hope to have us all in ghettos that you need a pass to get out of.
What we need is some of the really cheap Chinese EVs to land on our shores. New EVs for under 10 grand is possible right now, as in China you can get them for less the US$5K.
This Abarth is grossly overpriced and I hope it sells very poorly because of that. We need to send a clear message that we won't be blatantly rippped off.
Just another boring overpriced artificial electro trash awaiting for a cliff drop value in its second hand price – your money: spend it or waste it the way you like it
I don't quite get how the range is so much worse, the Mini SE which is more powerful, is also far more efficient. Seems like they might have cheaped out with the motor, choosing to go for a less efficient model. More efficient motors have more windings, and thus cost more.
More on those ducks please
Nice but too small.
Yeah I just want to hear the actual electric motor.
it seems like… a petrol version would be better than this, who would have thought that? Lol
How do they get this stuff so wrong? A noise on/off button. It's not bloody rocket science.
Great review. It's a kind of fun car, despite the fact it's quite heavy.
I've had the opportunity to drive the Abarth 500e very recently, but only for a short drive in the city, and I like it. The sound generator is great, but it could be louder in my opinion. Inside it looks like a luxury car, with alcantara.
So basically ev killed abarth and it’s lunacy
Just get the petrol
What I think is, sadly, that the Italians are, once again, blowing smoke up ……..
Insanity pricing again.
There is no future for the affordable hot hacth in a EV world.
It makes no sense that this is fwd. It’s far easier to make an ev rwd than an ice car. Just buy an mg 4 if you want a fun ev.
I'm an EV driver, and I really want to like this. But I suspect the new Mini and Renault 5 will be more polished articles.
I love my petrol Abarth 595 scorpioneoro… I know everything is wrongly being forced down the "EV route" and it will be comply or die? BUT surely for now (there`s over 6 years to current 2030 deadline) rather than keeping the old model plodding on they could have put the 595/695 mechanicals into this new body? i`d have been buying one…as it is this EV Abarth will loose many faithful followers..
good review. It's great they make fake sound to imitate ICE version, may I recommend they also make fake shift, fake clutch, fake turbo and fake motion to get full ICE experience? There is a market for those buyers. Also, on price comparison, IMO, TCO – total cost of ownership make more sense than just look at initial purchase price. In general, ICE has oil change, tune up, and the time going to petrol station to refill vs EV has none on home charging. Time is a resource that a lot of people overlooked. Unless you keep the vehicle forever, we got to look at resell value. Is there still a market for used ICE let's say 2030? 8 years from now. These are some points we need to research.
I wonder if the early combustion car makers tried to make their cars sound like horse hooves? To pander to the concrete folks, the ones who cannot bend with change.
EVs are the future hey? How about you do your own thinking rather than mindlessly repeating ideological nonsense. You can do better
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