As some of you know, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my 2008 Subaru Forester for a while now. With an engine that needed to be rebuilt, a transmission that would occasionally drop down into third gear on the highway and who knows how many other gremlins hiding under the hood, it clearly needed to be replaced. At the same time, despite not feeling comfortable selling it to someone else, I also couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it because it still ran, and the gasket sealer I added did stop most of the oil leaking for the last year.
Unfortunately for me, I’m not exactly swimming in cash, so whatever I replaced it with had to be cheap to buy, operate and insure. Second-generation Porsche Cayennes proved to be a tempting option, but as much as I love the idea of owning a cheap Porsche, I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger, especially with the prospect of tariffs on imported parts looming on the horizon. Especially not when my old friend the Fiat 500e was also sitting there, calling my name.
At first, I considered leasing a new one. That would have given me the opportunity to give it a proper long-term test, and I could handle the payment. It’s a much better car than its predecessor and comes with significantly more range, but then I saw it. A baby blue 2015 Fiat 500e with about 68,000 miles on the odometer. It was a little more expensive than I was hoping for, but that’s partly because old 500es have held their value much better than you might expect. It was also nearly 90 miles away from where I live, which isn’t exactly ideal when the car itself is only EPA-rated at 87 miles of range.
At the same time, it’s not like I wasn’t familiar with the first-generation 500e. I owned one when I lived in LA and loved pretty much everything about it. I didn’t love it when someone tried to steal the copper out of my charging cable and ruined it, but that wasn’t the Fiat’s fault. It was just a fantastic daily driver that cost almost nothing to keep on the road. The only problem is that I live in Georgia now, which is much more spread out than my old neighborhood in Koreatown. It can also get pretty cold here, which is never good for EV range.
Still, just how bad could it be? I was already familiar with the car, the one I found was a Good Color and it’s not like I drive 100 miles a day. I’d charged one off a wall outlet before just fine, and there was no reason I couldn’t do the same thing again. The fact that I could write about the reality of living with a low-range EV outside of a major city was also a bonus.
So I pulled the trigger and picked up my new-to-me 2015 Fiat 500e over Thanksgiving weekend. The dealership took the Subaru off my hands, and I was free. Except it was also about 40 degrees out, and the drive home was almost all highway miles, which as most of you already know is terrible for an EV’s range. Thankfully, there were also plenty of chargers along the route, so I didn’t have to worry too much about running out of juice. I’ve had good experiences with ChargePoint in the past, so I picked one that was about 40 miles away and set off.
Did I make it, and did the charger work? You bet. Unfortunately for me, that was also about as far as I could reasonably drive without stopping to charge. When I say cold weather straight-up destroys the old 500e’s range, I really do mean it. And since the car maxes out at a charge rate of just 6.6 kW, a full charge takes about four hours, and you can forget fast charging. Still, it wasn’t bad. I spent my time re-familiarizing myself with the car and occasionally standing back just to admire how good it looks. You don’t have to agree, but I really am in love with the color.
An hour and $2 later, I figured I’d charged long enough and set off again. As I passed the last charger between where I was and where I was going, I even felt confident enough to skip it. Not long after I did, though, the estimated range started to drop faster than it had been before. Maybe I was driving up a gentle incline and didn’t notice, but it was clear I’d be cutting it close. As it turned out, “close” meant one mile and two percent. Oops.
Thankfully, I don’t drive anywhere near that far on a daily basis, and I have yet to cut it that close again in the, uh, three days I’ve owned it? Honestly, the furthest I go is to my girlfriend’s house, and roundtrip, that’s only 35 miles or so. On the other hand, I’m not going to pretend it’s going to be worry-free until spring. We’re currently in the middle of a cold snap, and lows are in the 20s. Even with the heat off, I probably only have about half the range you would expect.
I’ll also have to rent a car to go on a road trip, and I can’t top off my battery in 15 or 20 minutes like you can with a long-range EV. I’ll probably also have to deal with some range anxiety until it gets a little warmer, but if nothing about your car causes you anxiety, what are you supposed to worry about while driving? Nothing? I’ve got my flaws, but I’m not that much of a psychopath.