Fiat’s determination to create a brand new petrol-engined 500 was pushed by older drivers shunning electrical automobiles, boss Olivier François has mentioned.
Last month, the Italian model confirmed the brand new 500 Ibrida will arrive by early 2026, securing a long-term future for its big-selling ICE metropolis automotive.
The 500 Ibrida can be primarily based, unusually, on a modified model of the 500e’s EV platform. This means it’ll adjust to the EU’s upcoming General Safety Regulations 2 – one thing the present 500, which relies on a 20-year-old platform, falls foul of.
However, the important thing cause for the choice got here after European patrons “turned their back on the sustainable solutions”, which exacerbated wounds already sustained from the Covid pandemic, uncooked materials shortages and a scarcity of authorities incentives.
Fiat felt it needed to react to gradual EV gross sales of its top-seller by extending the lifetime of the extra standard ICE mannequin (108,943 of the 500’s the full 173,187 gross sales final yr have been petrol-engined), François mentioned on the model’s 125th-anniversary celebrations in Turin.
“For me the 500 is electrical. We have the right automotive within the [500e],” he mentioned. “That being mentioned, we clearly, like everybody else, thought that the world would go electrical quicker and the price of electrification would go down quicker.
“But, we could not think about that Covid would occur, scarcity of uncooked supplies would occur, the European Society, not all, not the youngest half, would flip their backs on the sustainable options.
“But that is the fact. We must face these realities.
He added: “It’s essential for us to suit each expectation wherever we go. So we needed to react [by updating] the previous-generation hybrid, which clearly was getting a bit bit previous [and] drained, and that could not host the brand new rules. The situation was that we’d go forward in a short time.
“I nonetheless consider that the way forward for city mobility is electrical.”
François confirmed that the 500 Ibrida could be the ultimate ICE 500 mannequin that Fiat would launch, though this isn’t shocking, given the upcoming 2035 EU ban on the sale of all new ICE automobiles.
“It will die [after this] and people will move to electric,” he mentioned. “The transition just hasn’t happened as fast as we thought, especially [in markets like] Italy, which is why we made this decision on the hybrid.”
Fiat is following different Stellantis manufacturers in persevering with to push new ICE fashions regardless of that impending ban. For instance, the Jeep Avenger was to be bought solely as an EV within the UK however now additionally gives a petroleum possibility that was initially solely deliberate for choose European markets, and the identical is true of the Citroën C4 X.