Fiat 500X vs Hyundai Kona

What's the difference?

The 500X is a fun-looking alternative to the various options available from everyone else and is - overall - better to drive than its Renegade twin. 

It packs a very good safety package which you can't ignore but does lose points on the warranty and servicing regime. But it's also built to take four adults in comfort, which not every car in the segment can boast.

It hardly feels cutting-edge in the world of EVs, but it is refreshingly familiar to look at, sit in and drive, and it shrinks the jump from an ICE vehicle to your first EV into something that feels entirely manageable. This is easy, breezy, fuss-free electric motoring.

Look, I like the 500X, but I know why people don't. It's clearly a 500X in the way a Mini Countryman is a Mini. It looks like a 500, but get closer and you see the difference. It's chubby like a $10 weekend market Bhudda statue and has great big googly eyes like Mr Magoo. I find this endearing, my wife does not. The looks aren't the only thing she doesn't like.

The cabin is a bit more restrained and I quite like the band of colour stretching across the dash. The 500X is meant to be a bit more grown up than the 500, so there's a proper dash, more sensible design choices but it still has the big buttons, perfect for the meaty fingers of people who won't be buying this car.

Hyundai has made a big deal about designing the new Kona as an EV first, so it doesn't matter if you buy the petrol, the hybrid or the full electric, they all share styling cues.

But for mine, the Electric is the pick of the bunch, looking modern – futuristic even – without pushing it too far.

Some EVs look like they will age like a glass of milk, but the Kona isn't one of them. I suspect it will still look plenty sharp five years from now.

Even the sharp body creases along its flanks don't look overly in-your-face, and the design of the alloy wheels, the lightly flared wheel arches and the swept-back roofline all give the Kona Electric a relatively sleek and sporty profile.

But the Kona Electric looks best from front-on, where the slim light bars, pixelated grille and rounded snout look great.

Inside, the Kona Electric is a little more predictable, coming across as any other internal-combustion SUV, rather than delivering some future-facing cabin of surprises – albeit with the Drive selector shifted from its usual place between driver and passenger to a stalk to the right of the steering wheel.

At just 4.25 metres, the 500X isn't big, but makes the most of what it's got. The boot impresses at 350 litres and with the seats down, I think you could reasonably expect to triple that figure, though Fiat doesn't have an official number that I can find. For added Italian feel, you can tip the passenger seat forward to get really long things in, like a Billy bookshelf flat pack from Ikea.

Rear seat passengers sit high and upright meaning leg and kneeroom are maximised and with that tall roof, you won't scrape your head. 

The doors each have a small bottle holder for a total of four and Fiat has got serious about cupholders - the 500X now has four.

It's bigger than its ever been, this new-generation Kona, measuring just over 4.3m long, 1.8m wide and close to 1.6m tall – 30mm taller and 145mm longer than the model it has replaced.

And yes, that's most notable in the back seat, where my 175cm frame fits with ease. Hyundai tells me there's now 77mm more legroom, 17mm more shoulder room and 15mm more headroom, but what you really need to know is there is space aplenty for second-row riders.

The boot is bigger, too, now 407L to 1241L, and there are ample storage cubbies, bottle holders and console storage, including pop-out cupholders between driver and passenger.

Fun fact. We drove the Hyundai Kona Electric some time ago, but refrained from writing about it because the Korean brand couldn't yet tell us what it would cost. And in the increasingly competitive world of electric vehicles, the price is a big factor.

And yes, that's unusual. Car companies usually have every possible duck in a row before launching a vehicle. But with the Kona Electric, Hyundai was fighting over the price, trying to get it as low as it possibly could.

So, where did it end up? Cheaper than the last one.

The Kona Electric can be had as a base model or Premium, with the entry-level then able to be had in Standard Range or Extended Range guises (the Premium is Extended Range only).

So, the base Kona Electric Standard Range is now $54,000, before on-road costs, which is $500 cheaper than the model it replaces.

The Extended Range version of the same car is now $58,000, some $2500 cheaper than before. The only bad news is for the Kona Electric Premium, which lists at $68,000, or $4000 more than its predecessor.

For the record, that makes the Kona slightly more expensive than the BYD Atto 3 ($48,011 to $51,011), and cheaper than a Tesla Model Y ($65,400 to $78,400, not including the Performance).

What separates the base-model cars is the battery (48.6kWh or 64.8kWh), so both share 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, dual 12.3-inch screens for the digital instruments and multimedia touchscreen, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, a wireless phone charger, dual-zone climate, keyless entry and push-start ignition, as well as a full active safety suite.

The Premium grade then gets 19-inch alloy wheels, synthetic leather interior trim, heated and ventilated seats, a heated steering wheel, a head-up display, a Bose premium audio system, remote smart parking assist, a sunroof and a powered tailgate.

Fiat's rather excellent 1.4-litre turbo MultiAir does duty under the stubby bonnet, making 103kW and 230Nm. Rather less excellent is the six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which sends power through the front wheels only.

It's rated to tow a 1200kg braked trailer and 600kg unbraked.

Both Kona variants are single-motor propositions, but you do get more grunt when you opt for the bigger battery.

Base-model cars get a single, front-mounted electric motor, producing 99kW and 255Nm, while the Premium and Extended Range models deliver 150kW and 255Nm.

Neither, though, are particularly fast, reporting a 9.9sec or 8.1sec sprint to 100km/h, respectively.

Fiat rather optimistically suggest you'll get a combined cycle figure of 5.7L/100km but try as I might, I couldn't do better than 11.2L/100km. What's worse, it demands 98RON fuel, so it's not the cheapest car to run. This figure us consistent with past weeks in the 500X and no, I wasn't thrashing it.

We know already that the Kona can be had with two battery sizes, and the first (48.6kWh) will deliver a theoretical driving range of 370km on the WLTP cycle.

The bigger battery, now 64.8kWh, ups that number to 505km, but with a catch.

See, the Premium arrives with 19-inch alloy wheels, which look great, but also reduce efficiency, dropping your range to 444km. To get the full 505km, you need to stick with the 17-inch alloys.

It's also not the fastest-charging EV on the planet. The on-board AC charger is now set up for 10.4kW (though most home chargers are more like 7.0kW), but DC charging is limited to less than 100kW, meaning a 10 to 80 percent charge takes 45 minutes – or over an hour if you're using a 50kW fast charging station.

The Kona Electric also introduces an interior V2L plug, the same kind you might find in your kitchen, meaning you can plug in thirstier electronic deceives like laptops when on the move.

Again, I shouldn't like the 500X but I really don't mind it. It's flawed, which might be why.

The dual-clutch transmission is dumber than a box of loose cogs, lurching from start and looking the other way when you expect it to shift. We know the engine is a good one and I think part of the reason it's so thirsty is the confused way the transmission goes about its business. I'd love to drive a manual to see what it's like.

The 500X initially feels worse than its Jeep Renegade sibling-under-the-skin, which is quite an achievement. Part of that is to do with the ride, which is very choppy below 60km/h. The first 500X I drove wallowed about but this one is a bit tauter, which would be good if you weren't punished with this bounciness.

The seats themselves comfortable and the interior is a good place to hang out. It's reasonably quiet, too, which is at odds with the old-school silliness of its conduct. It feels like Labrador let out of after day kept inside.

And that's where the car I shouldn't like is a car I do like - I really like that it feels like you're on Roman cobblestones, the type that make your knees hurt when you walk on them for a day. The steering wheel is too fat and is at a weird angle, but you kind of square up to it and drive the car like your life depends on it. You have to take it by the scruff, correct the shifts with the paddles and show it who's boss.

Obviously, that's not for everyone. If you drive it really gently, it's a very different experience, but that means going slowly everywhere, which is no fun at all and not at all Italian.

What's it like to drive? Bloody easy, to be honest. What I loved about the old Kona Electric still rings true here, and that is that it this feels like a very easy step to make if you're moving into your first electric vehicle.

It looks familiar, it feels familiar, and it's immediately familiar to drive.

You know how some EVs feel mega-futuristic, pushing you back in your chair every time you poke the accelerator, all silent and slightly discombobulating aggression?

Well, this isn't one of those. It's smooth, sedate even, with fairly leisurely acceleration, smooth steering and a ride that's comfy enough, too.

But as I was cruising back from Canberra to Sydney (which required a charging stop, btw), I was pondering what it is people want from a small SUV. Mind-bending performance? Or practicality and comfort?

I suspect it's the latter, and the Kona Electric delivers on that front.

That said, the time it takes to charge is punishing. To have to stop for 30 minutes on the drive between Canberra and Sydney (granted, it was only 80 percent charged when I got in it) is tough, but it's made tougher still when the time stationary is half an hour plus.

It's officially a four-star ANCAP vehicle, this Kona, owing mostly to the performance of some of its active safety kit, like AEB, which ANCAP described as "adequate".

How much that bothers you is an individual thing (I can tell you it bothers me exactly not at all), and the Kona is fitted with a whole bunch of safety kit, including seven airbags, 'Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist 2.0' (AEB) with human and bike detection, lane change and junction assist, 'Blind-Spot Collision-Avoidance Assist' and 'Blind-Spot View Monitor', intelligent cruise control and auto lights.

Fiat offers a three-year/150,000km warranty, along with roadside assist for the same period. It's not great as more manufacturers shift to five years. 

Service intervals arrive once a year or 15,000km. There is no fixed or capped-price servicing program for the 500X.

The Kona Electric is covered by Hyundai's five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty,  while the battery is covered for eight years or 160,000km.

Servicing is a strong point, with the intervals pegged at 24 months or 30,000km, and capped at $520 per visit for the first three services, or up to six years.