Fiat still working on 500 EV; could have slight external changes

The Fiat 500 has been a popular vehicle to convert to electric drive – so much so that even the recently deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had one (see also here and here) – but an official 500 EV has been nothing but auto show reveals and secret tests and that's about it for the past few years. Chrysler displayed a battery-powered 500 at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show but work has continued a bit behinds the scenes since then.

As far as we know, the plan to bring a small number of 500 EVs to market sometime next year (as a 2013 model) remains in place. We've heard price suggestions from $32,000 all the way up to $45,000, and new spy shots over at AutoObserver don't shed much more light on that issue. They do show us that there's a good chance that the zero-emissions version will have a slightly different front and rear fascias; what else would the camo covers be for?

It's good to see Chrysler and Fiat continuing to test the little BEV, even though Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne once said that his company will lose $10,000 on each Fiat 500 EV sold. That's gotta hurt, but perhaps these tests are ways to reduce that number.



Source: Autoblog Green