Fiat's Grande Panda Electric confirms that small, affordable EV small hatches needn't be boring. Jonathan Crouch drives it.

Background

You might think there's nothing we haven't seen before when it comes to small electric compact hatchbacks. But you'd be wrong. For a start, this Fiat Grande Panda Electric looks and feels very different to anything else in its market segment. And has something we haven't seen before on any EV - an integrated charge cable. You don't have to have this Fiat in this electric form - there are also combustion models too. But the Turin maker designed the Grande Panda around EV motion and hopes you'll consider this full-battery variant first. It aims to offer the best of both worlds for customers needing a trendy EV supermini - for the price of an EV citycar. Let's take a closer look.

Driving Experience

Like many small Stellantis Group models, the Grande Panda was originally envisaged as an EV-only product, then hurriedly reconfigured in later development so as also to be able to include a combustion hybrid offering too. The EV version we tried is the one Fiat most wants to sell you, with a battery smaller than the one in the only slightly larger 600e model because the Grande Panda sits on different architecture. The Smart Car Stellantis platform (shared with the Citroen C3) is designed in EV form for use with a 44kWh battery, which in this case offers a range of 199 miles and is paired with a 113hp motor. It's a simplistic driving experience - no drive modes or brake regen settings. Expect 62mph in around 11s en route to 98mph. As that sprint figure suggests, this isn't the perkiest motor you're going to come across in a small EV, but it's all you really need for city use. In town, the ride, though not quite as supple as a similarly-engineered Citroen e-C3, deals well with tarmac tears, pot holes and speed humps. Rather surprisingly, you do without the really tight turning circle you might hope for from this class of car - it's an unexceptional 10.9 metres. In almost every other respect though, helped by the boxy shape's glassy frontwards visibility, this is a great urban drive companion. Beyond the city limits, things aren't quite so great - but you might be expecting that in a cheap runabout. The ride's not quite so good at higher speeds but body roll is better kept in check around tighter bends than the high square-sided shape suggests that it might be. It's not as fun a driving experience as in a rival Renault 5, but the steering's well-weighted and quite precise.

Design and Build

You might recognise this as a Panda - but only just. The blocky, boxy stance with its vertical front-end references the Eighties Giugiaro-designed original. And in pursuit of what Fiat thinks is a required crossover vibe, there are plenty of nods to the old Panda 4x4 - the roof rails, the chunky front skid plate and the black lower body cladding. But there's also plenty that's new, most notably the pixel headlights, apparently inspired by the windows of Fiat's old Lingotto factory in Turin. This is a slightly bigger kind of Panda too. The 3.99m length (though still compact for the class) is 0.3m longer than before. Much is borrowed from the brand's early 2024 'Mega-Panda' concept car, including the X-shaped daytime running light signatures, the offset front Fiat logo on the gloss black grille panel and the three-dimensional tail light design. It's equally funky and design-led inside the airy, spacious minimalist cabin, where the oval theme apparently references the roof top test track of that old Lingotto factory. Through the square-bezelled retro two-spoke wheel, you view a 10-inch instrument display flanked by a colourful 10.25-inch central infotainment screen. And Pandas of the past are referenced by the bright plastics and textured fabrics. There's ample interior stowage room too, with up to 13-litres of storage space, including a similar 'pocket' dashboard to the original Panda. Rear passenger space was always a strong point of previous models and the high roof line, squarical stance and an extra length of this one mean that it's more spacious in the back than a car of this class has any right to be. There's a decently-sized 361-litre boot too. Plus, on the electric model, a further 13-litre compartment beneath the bonnet.

Market and Model

Prices at the time of our review in Summer 2026 were starting at around £20,000 for this Grande Panda Electric. This Electric model doesn't qualify for a government Electric Car Grant, so Fiat provides its own £1,500 E-Grant to compensate, taking the asking price as we filmed down to £19,500. With all Grande Pandas, there's a choice of 'Pop', 'Icon' and 'La Prima' trim levels. The base 'Pop' trim offers just the basics, though you do get LED Pixel tail lights, plus rear parking sensors, High Beam Assist and cruise control. And LED Pixel headlamps made up of opal cubes, complemented by Daytime Running Lights that turn into indicators and illuminate some of the cubes which appear as horizontal pixels arranged in a chessboard pattern. Inside, there's a 10-inch TFT instrument display and manual air conditioning. While media stuff is taken care of by a 10.25-inch Uconnect central screen with voice recognition and wireless 'Apple CarPlay' and 'Android Auto'. To get your Grande Panda with the kind of crossover look we have here, your starting point is mid-range 'Icon' trim, because that adds roof rails and skid plates, plus 16-inch black alloy wheels and rear privacy glass. 'Icon' spec also gets you a central armrest and connected services for the centre screen. For the full Grande Panda experience though, you've to stretch to the top 'La Prima' trim, identifiable by its larger 17-inch alloy wheels and inside by Fiat's curious 'BAMBOX Bamboo Fiber Tex' cabin trimming. 'La Prima' trim gets you a few more niceties - navigation, heated front seats, front parking sensors, a rear view camera, a wireless charging mat, higher-quality fabrics and innovative 'BAMBOX Bamboo Fiber Tex' cabin trimming.

Cost of Ownership

Range figures for EVs usually need to be taken with a degree of scepticism and that'll certainly be the case here, particularly if you'll be driving your electric Grande Panda in very cold conditions. Its LFP 'Lithium Ferro Phosphate' battery's more sensitive to external temperatures than a more usual lithium-ion battery would be, so you can expect the claimed 199 mile range figure for this 44kWh model to plummet in the depths of winter. You can't compensate with a heat pump either because that won't be offered here. The driving range though, should still be comfortably ahead of the 140 mile figure claimed for a rival (though vastly cheaper) Dacia Spring. To give you some perspective, the three-door Fiat 500e (42kWh) offers 199 miles, while the only slightly larger Fiat 600e (54kWh) manages 254 miles. On to charging - and there's something genuinely innovative here. We've been waiting ages for a car maker to finally deliver an EV with a retractable charge cable, so you don't have to carry around charge cables clogging up the boot and getting your hands dirty when you use them. The electric version of this Grande Panda is the first to deliver just that, with a long spiral charging cable that pulls out of a panel provided on the grille. You grab the integrated Type 2 plug and pull, then the yellow spiral coiled cable will extend out 4.5-metres so that you can plug directly into a home wallbox or public AC charging point. Once charging's finished and you unplug, the cable uses a spring-loaded self-retracting mechanism (like a vacuum cleaner) to pull itself neatly back into its housing behind the grille. The big caveat though is that you can only use it to AC-charge at up to 7.4kW (which takes 4 hours 20 minutes for a 20-80% charge). For 11kW AC charging (which from 20-80% takes 2 hours 50 minutes) or fast DC charging (which takes place at up to 100kW and from 20-80% takes 27 minutes), you'll need to use the separate rapid charging port on the rear three-quarter panel.

Summary

With this car, Fiat has sat down and tried to do something different with the whole EV concept. The extent to which they've succeeded is particularly impressive given the extent to which the design of this car had to be based on existing Stellantis 'Smart Car' engineering. You wouldn't really know it was so closely related to a Citroen e-C3 or a Vauxhall Frontera Electric. It has its own friendly vibe. Which won't be for everyone, but that's part of its charm. It can be eco-conscious transport for Friends of the Earth. Perhaps a second vehicle for older empty-nesters. Or the sole car for a rural family. Less a city car. More an 'essential' car, it is, in the words of one top Fiat executive 'the official car for doing whatever you like'.