Coming soon: Abarth 500e

The sound of electric cars, or the lack of it, is one of the first things you’ll notice when switching out of an internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalent. For everyday driving this is generally a good thing, the peace and refinement for drivers and passengers helping them feel more relaxed.
But what if the sound a car makes is all part of the fun? And how will brands known for shouting about their high-performance credentials with loud engines manage this transition? Fiat’s performance partner Abarth has come up with one possible solution for its electrified spin on the 500e, as Alex Legouix demonstrates in this video.

The signature Abarth scorpion branding and Acid Green paint of this hot 500e put some visual ground between it and the regular Fiat on which it is based. But where ICE Abarth models used noisy exhausts to announce their arrival this electric one uses speakers to make itself heard. This is nothing new, of course, and even regular cars have long-used augmented engine noise over the stereo to fill the silence of ever-quieter engines.
The Abarth is a bit different, and has a speaker on the outside as well. Meaning everyone gets to know you’re in the high-performance 500e and you get to turn some heads just as you would have done in its ICE powered models. Up to a point. In standard form you get a jaunty strum of a guitar every time you turn the car on or off, while on the outside the so-called Acoustic Vehicle Alert System required to warn pedestrians and other vulnerable road users of your approach has been customised for a sound designed to set the Abarth apart from other electric cars. Go for the optional Sound Generator, though, and you get a more faithful recreation of that classic Abarth engine noise that rises and falls according to how hard you’re pressing the accelerator, while also recreating alerting people to your presence. But hopefully not so loud you annoy them or trip one of the new ’noise cameras’ designed to catch anti-social drivers. To that end you can, if you wish, turn it off so as not to annoy people when ‘idling’ at a standstill. Given it’s all electronic Abarth can of course control the sound so it complies with increasingly strict noise limits for cars, balancing thrills for the driver with responsibility for those around them. All of which is a lot easier to manage than with a conventional exhaust system, and hopefully an answer to Rory’s question of why modern cars sound so boring.

In keeping with Abarth tradition its 500e is faster than the Fiat base model, with power increasing from 118 horsepower to 155 horsepower, chopping two seconds off the time it takes to go from zero to 62mph. Perhaps not quite as rapid as some of the feistier special edition Abarths of the past, though apparently the 500e is quicker in the kind of real-world busts of acceleration you use in the urban driving it’s designed for and is faster round the factory test track than the previous ICE-powered 695 thanks to what is called the ‘Scorpion Track’ driving mode. The Turismo setting meanwhile offers a more refined driving style while Scorpion Street has ‘one pedal driving’ where the car slows to a halt by just lifting off the accelerator, charging the battery and taking the stress out of urban driving into the bargain.
We’ll look forward to driving the Abarth 500e at the earliest opportunity and, in the meantime, if you liked this video don’t forget to hit the button, tag the bell for notifications and subscribe for more like this!