Watch our Fiat 500e review in HD on TheFamilyCar YouTube channel.
When the Chief Executive Officer of a major auto manufacturer says that you shouldn’t buy an electric vehicle from his company, what should you do?
Ignore the advice, if you can, as the EV, the Fiat 500e, is an excellent electric vehicle, though unfortunately it is only for sale in California and Colorado.
Chrysler Fiat is making the “e” version of their 500 for only one reason, to comply with California and Colorado legal mandates that each auto maker who sells cars or trucks in the states offer a percentage of zero emission vehicles.
The reason Chrysler Fiat’s CEO Sergio Marchionne doesn’t want you to buy his Fiat 500e, is because, according to him, each one that he sells costs the company $14,000.
Moving along now from Sergio, note that this EV review of the Fiat 500e benefits from the fact that six members of the greater GreenFamilyCar family have been inspired to lease the EV. One of these, our intrepid correspondent Michael Boehm, recently carpooled in his 500e with our editor Dean Adams Curtis to a meeting in downtown LA at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Our friends, their friends, coworkers and loved ones, who have gotten their EV fixes by leasing the Fiat 500e from a Fiat dealer in Santa Monica, along the Pacific Coast of Los Angeles, have become fans. Most Americans unfortunately don’t have this opportunity because their states have not yet required all automakers who sell vehicles in the state to make a percentage of their total sales be of zero-emission-vehicles. Thus, it follows that citizens in these states must acquiesce to Mr. Marchionne’s advice.
One lesson that can be learned from this six-person cluster of satisfied Fiat 500e consumers in the Santa Monica area of Southern California, is that there is strong demand for electric vehicles but some automakers are lagging behind in supplying them. Some seem to be foot-dragging due to their insistence on a level playing field, a national marketplace, charging infrastructure and other excuses, before they make earnest efforts to manufacture the EVs that we humans, Earth, and all her species need to help prevent catastrophic climate change.
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