By ROB HULL
Updated: 04:40 AEDT, 11 January 2025
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Fiat has slashed the price of two of its electric models from January, having previously reduced the cost of other battery cars in a bid to increase flailing demand that has seen the brand's UK sales shrink by 14 per cent in the last year.
Prices tags for the 600e family crossover and Abarth 500e hot hatch have been trimmed by up to £4,220. Both now start from £29,975 in the hope it will make them more appealing to both private buyers and fleet customers.
The savings come via the Italian marque's 'E-Grant' scheme, which originally launched in 2023 when Fiat first identified a lack of demand for its 500e electric city car.
With ministers refusing requests from the motor industry to implement taxpayer-funded EV incentives to boost private electric car uptake, Fiat's scheme replicates the Plug-in Car Grant offered by the Government from 2011 - when battery vehicles were very much in their infancy - until 2022.
Most car makers have been significantly discounting EVs in recent months, especially towards the end of 2024 as they rallied to increase sales in a desperate bid to meeting the Government's mandated targets.
It saw some brands wipe up to a third off the price of electric models in an effort to meet the 22 per cent EV sales share required by the Tory-introduced Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate – a threshold that rises to 28 per cent for 2025.
Fiat's parent company, Stellantis, which also owns huge European players including Peugeot, Citroen and Vauxhall, confirmed earlier this week that it had met the ZEV mandate thresholds last year for both passenger cars and vans – a result that sees it dodge fines of £15,000 per e-car (and £9,000 per e-van) short of the required quota.
But at what cost? The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) claimed car makers had haemorrhaged £4billion last year through discounts and price cuts to make EVs more appealing to the nation's drivers that it said are 'untenable' and 'unsustainable'.
Fiat has cut the price of two electric cars (including the 600e pictured) for 2025 to make them more appealing to UK drivers who are being 'put off by the perceived high cost of EV purchase,' it said
Prices tags for the 600e family crossover and Abarth 500e hot hatch (pictured) have been trimmed by around £4,000. Both now start from £29,975 in the hope it will make them more appealing to both private buyers and fleet customers
Fiat is one of the car makers to have jumped fully onboard with the electric car revolution relatively early.
In 2020 it controversially announced its all-new 500 would be sold exclusively as an electric model. Those wanting the popular city car with a petrol engine were told they would have to make do with the ageing previous-generation model based on a near-20-year-old platform.
However, that decision was reversed last year when Fiat bosses admitted it had seen demand for the 500e stall, especially among older customers, and had been forced to retrofit the car with a petrol-hybrid drivetrain to appease buyers as well as rule makers, who had said the older 500 no longer adhered to European safety standards for new models.
Fiat was even forced to suspend production of 500e at its Turin factory from 14 September to 1 November, such was the lack of demand for the small electric car.
Fiat CEO Olivier Francois (pictured) said the new mild-hybrid petrol 500 Ibrida will arrive in early 2026 due to a slower than anticipated uptake of EVs across Europe, especially among older drivers
A lack of appetite for the 500e saw Fiat suspend production of the electric city car at its Turin factory for seven weeks between September and November
Fiat sold 1,750 fewer cars in the UK in 2024 than the year previous. The fall in registrations is likely the result of it limiting its new model range primarily to EVs at a time of low demand
With Fiat's existing range made up primarily of EVs, the Italian maker has seen its presence on the UK market dissolved.
In 2014, 2.7 per cent of all new registrations in Britain were Fiats. However, by 2023 its footprint shrank to just 0.9 per cent - and last year it fell to only 0.7 per cent.
In contrast to the UK's new car market growing for a second consecutive year in 2024, Fiat sold 1,750 fewer units than it did in 2023 (down from 16,598 to 14,253), despite its E-Grant scheme being in place for the 500e throughout the calendar year.
Market analysis undertaken by cap hpi in October also revealed that Stellantis dealers had been slashing huge amounts off their new EVs to encourage uptake.
It found Peugeot retailers had knocked 26.5 per cent - the equivalent of £9,700 - off the price of a new e-2008, bringing the price down from £36,548 to just £26,863.
Citroen dealers were also offering almost a quarter (23.6 per cent) off the e-C4 and e-C4X EVs, while Vauxhall showrooms were discounting Mokka-e crossovers by almost 20 per cent.
Vauxhall also announced through official lines that it was cutting the price of the Corsa-e and Astra-e by around 10 per cent in the same month.
The SMMT said in November that weak demand for battery cars was set to cost manufacturers £6bn in 2024; some £4bn in discounts alone and around £1.8bn bill for compliance for those missing their targets for cars alone.
Yet Stellantis confirmed it sold 39,492 electric cars in 2024 – a 59 per cent increase on 2023 – resulting in a 10.3 per cent share of the electric car market.
Its commercial vehicle operations shifted 7,821 electric vans last year, too, many of which are produced at its Ellesmere Port plant in the north west. This was more than any other major manufacturer.
Eurig Druce, Stellantis UK's managing director, celebrated the hitting UK EV sales targets in 2024 but warned the 'steep trajectories' in the ZEV mandate are 'out of step with demand'
Managing director for UK operations Eurig Druce said: '2024 saw more people than ever purchase an EV and I'd like to thank our customers who have decided to switch to electric with one of our brands and also to our incredible UK retailer network for making it happen.'
Druce also welcomed the Government's recently announced consultation on the phase out of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, including the consideration of flexibility to the ZEV mandate.
He said the current 'steep trajectories of the ZEV mandate are out of step from current demand,' adding: 'If the UK is to achieve its transport emission ambitions, and for EVs to represent 80 per cent of new cars sold in 2030, then consumers are going to need more encouragement from Government to do so.'
A Department for Transport spokesperson responded to the comments: 'It's great to see that Stellantis has met its EV sales target for 2024, increasing on year sales by more than half.
'The UK is now the largest EV market in Europe and, thanks to the flexibilities of the ZEV Mandate, we are confident that the whole industry will meet targets and that no car manufacturer will need to pay fines.
'2024 was also a record year for the rollout of chargepoints, with nearly 20,000 public chargers added to the network last year and a further 100,000 in the pipeline thanks to Government support.
'We're investing over £2.3billion to make the transition to zero-emissions vehicles a success, unlocking a multibillion-pound industry and creating high-quality jobs that will drive growth for decades to come.'
Passed into law under Rishi Sunak's Conservative government, the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate requires manufacturers to increase the share of zero-emission cars they sell each year.
Given there are almost no hydrogen fuel cell vehicles sold in Britain today, this primarily means an increase in battery electric car sales.
The ZEV mandate forces car makers to sell an increasing volume of EVs between now and 2035
The mandate works on a credit-based system where manufacturers are awarded or stripped of credits if they overperform or underperform on the annual quotas.
Manufacturers can choose to bank these credits for future years if they're needed or can be sold to underperforming car makers who need them to avoid fines.
Conglomerates, like Volkswagen Group and Stellantis, can use credits from one brand under its umbrella to help another worse-performing brand it owns.
But manufacturers also earn credits for selling low-emission cars, such as plug-in hybrids.
If a car maker beats their CO2 target (which is set individually for each brand) by reducing their CO2 emissions, then they can, for the first three years, convert this breathing room into ZEV credits at an exchange rate.
However, failure to meet annual percentage sales targets with credits each year will result in £15,000 per-vehicle financial penalties.
The targets for ZEV car sales are:
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