Fiat’s new bargain-priced Grande Panda EV, recently released in Europe and potentially headed to the U.S. market, has a new feature for electric vehicles that just makes too much sense. Instead of relying on a separate cable to juice up your car, one that you probably leave plugged into the socket in your garage anyway, the big Panda has an integrated retractable coiled plug to charge up. This is largely a solution for European-style charging where the user is expected to supply a cable to connect from vehicle to public charging infrastructure, but it could come in handy here in the U.S. as well, allowing the Panda (and future Stellantis EV products) to fit in otherwise difficult-to-use charging station parking spots.
With the Panda’s charging port located on the end of a long integrated charging cable, the car can drive in or back in at any charger or plug in the world and still have plenty of cable slack remaining to plug into the EVSE.
According to Autocar the new 7.4 kW charger will be integrated into all future Fiat EV products, and featured prominently on each car’s front fascia. You can see in this video posted to Twitter by Autocar, that the cable uncoils from inside the car’s grille, and plugs in with ease.
Obviously this kind of charger is only intended for L2 long-term charging. You’re not going to be able to rock up to a Supercharger and get high-speed electrons from this cable, but it’s super handy for people who plug in overnight at home, or during the day while at the office.
This kind of simple innovation is exactly what the EV world needs to develop in order to make electric vehicles better for everyday use.