Tesla Model 3 vs Fiat 500E

What's the difference?

The Model 3 Performance is one of those cars that’s undeniably impressive in almost every way, and hugely fast in absolutely every way, and yet can somehow still leave you feeling slightly cold. Or at least damp with fear sweat.

It’s not my kind of sports car, but if you love speed, and EVs, and Tesla, you’re gong to think it’s the Queen Bee’s knees.

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A fun, funky EV which will no doubt appeal to lovers of Italian style, but also one which struggles a little on the range and price front.

Still, there’s no doubt that electrification has improved the Fiat 500 formula.

Tesla’s design folks waxed long and loud about how they’d finally been able to visually lift and separate this Performance Model 3 from the basic one and they point to the new front and rear fascias, more aggressive styling, aerodynamic flicks, integrated cooling ducts, rear diffuser and carbon-fibre spoiler, which are there not only to look good, but to to “optimise lift balance and high-speed stability”.

Now, I’ll grant you it’s better than a normal Model 3, and that we were regularly approached by excited Tesla fans asking “is this the NEW PERFORMANCE OH MY GOD I WANT ONE NOW?!?"

But honestly, I still think it’s a bit subtle, and that includes the strange little 'Performance' sticker/badge on the rear, which does look a lot like the Ludicrous symbol that Elon loves, from the awful movie Spaceballs, but Tesla staff insist it’s not, nor is it Plaid. 

Clearly, the design tweaks are there for a reason, and train spotters will note the differences immediately, but it’s still just not the most exciting car to look at, nor is it anywhere near as exciting to behold as it is to drive.

It looks, well, it looks like a Fiat 500.

It’s actually bigger in every dimension than an ICE cinquecento, but it doesn’t really look like it, which is a good thing.

The 17-inch wheels look great, and big against the very small Fiat, and I like the hidden doorhandles, which make the already smooth-looking 500’s flanks look a little smoother still. But I can take or leave the little DRLs up front that are meant to act as little illuminated eyebrows for the headlights, which come over a bit too cutesy.

But I think the highest compliment I can pay it is that it looks like a regular Fiat 500 — one of the most successful reincarnations of a timeless design ever — and not some modern, eco-friendly version that would have killed the look. 

In the cabin, however, it’s definitely a more modern affair, with the big screen, the horizontal push-button gear selector, and the nifty push-button door openers.

Still, it’s all pretty familiar Fiat 500, only a little nicer, even if some of the plastics are far too hard and scratchy for a vehicle this expensive.

There are five colours available: Ice white, Onyx black, Rose gold, Ocean green and Celestial blue.

Inside, the big news is the new seats. Tesla was happy to admit the pews fitted to the previous Performance just weren’t up to the job of holding humans in place when applying so much G force. 

The new 'Sport Seats' feature enhanced side cushioning and side bolsters for better lateral support during dynamic driving. And they can also be heated and ventilated. 

Elsewhere, there’s some carbon-fibre trim on top of the dash, with a Tesla-first weave pattern to further help the Performance stand out within the Model 3 line-up.

Other than that, it’s pretty standard Tesla sedan, which will be familiar if you’ve ever caught an Uber in Los Angeles. Spartan, minimalist, slightly cheap-feeling.

As for the practicality of the tech, I'm still against the giant 15-inch tablet-style touchscreen, for everything, the replacement of an indicator stalk with buttons and not having a speedo right in front of your eyes, where you need it.

The 500e is 29mm taller, 61mm longer and 56mm wider than the current ICE Fiat 500 (now 1529mm, 3631mm and 1683mm respectively), and it rides on a longer wheelbase, too .

That means more front-seat room and head room, but there’s still not oodles of space in the four-seat cabin, and especially in the back, where things are pretty tight.

I’m 175cm tall, and my head touches the ceiling in the back, and if I had another full-size human in the back with me, I’d want it to be someone I know well, because we’d be well and truly aquatinted by the time we got to our destination.

The front seats are more accomodating, but there is a strange tightness to the pedal area for the driver. It’s so tight, in fact, that when you rest your left foot, you have to be careful not to accidentally clip the brake pedal when driving.

The boot is a small 185 litres, too. But you’re not buying this for practicality perks, are you?

The 500e is not cheap by modern small EV standards — we’re looking at you, China — but it does arrive in one well-equipped trim level, called La Prima, with paint the only available option.

It's also, quite shockingly for anyone who has driven an ICE Fiat 500 lately, stacked with some truly high-tech kit.

 There’s heated seats for the first time ever, for example, and there’s 10.25-inch central screen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and wireless charging.

There’s a digital driver display, too, plus there’s faux-leather on the seats and dash, a panoramic glass sunroof and fancy push-button front doors (though with a mechanical back-up lever hidden in the door pockets should something go pear shaped).

Outside, you’ll find 17-inch alloys, as well as LED lightning all around, including the DRLs, and there’s keyless entry and push-button start, too.

But, and it’s a significant but, the 500e lists at $52,500 before on-roads , which — when you consider its size, battery and range — really edges it into the premium EV space.

A similar-sized EV from China can be had for under $40k, which means you are going to have to really love the 500e to drop that extra $15k or so.

If you’ve ever driven the previous Model 3 Performance you’ll know that it could well have come with Space X badging (arguably Elon’s more impressive engineering achievement), because it really did thrust rather than accelerate.

But this time the engineers wanted to go all out. Customers appreciated the incremental performance they got from the last Model 3 Performance version, but they told Tesla they wanted more.

With many enthusiasts among Tesla's engineering and development team, they looked to unlock the performance potential of the platform.

So, that meant a whole lot more madness and torque thump. It comes from a new Performance 4DU, an all-new drive unit - featuring an entirely new rear motor that uses bar-winding technology - unlocking 22 per cent more continuous power, 32 per cent more peak power and 16 per cent higher peak torque delivery. 

Overall figures are 380kW and 740Nm, but looking at them written down, they seem big, yet not as big as they feel in this car, as it’s shoving you from a standing start to 100km/h in three seconds flat. 

It feels faster. Sick-making fast, even.

A single front-mounted electric motor delivers the power here, with 87kW and 220Nm on offer. Enough, Fiat says, to knock off 100km/h in 9.0 seconds. But it does feel quicker than that in real life, thanks to the way electric vehicles deliver their power.

There’s the usual EV single-speed gearbox, too, with power sent to the front wheels.

Despite being heavier and gruntier, Tesla claims the new Performance Model 3 manages to be more efficient than the one it replaces, albeit delivering just a two per cent reduction in energy consumption. Claimed energy usage is 16.7 kWh/100km.

Tesla claims a total range of 528km on the WLTP, which is obviously going to drop if you drive it the way its makers clearly intended.

Using a Tesla Supercharger, you can add 228km in 15 minutes and... that's all Tesla will tell us. There are no official figures available for how long a full charge takes, on either a Tesla charge or a home wallbox of your own.

The Fiat 500e’s 42kWh battery provides a smallish 311km driving range on paper, but when we got in it was more like 290km at 96per cent charged. A city car, then, rather than a long-distance hauler.

When it does come time to charge, you’re set up for 85kW DC fast charging which should take you from zero to 80 percent in 35 minutes. 

Very occasionally, one drives a car that makes the human body feel inadequate to the task. I would have worried that I’m getting old, that my body is simply too flubby and my brain too broken, to cope with the kind of wild acceleration and brutal g-forces the Model 3 Performance delivers.

But, fortunately, I had a videographer in the passenger seat, a much younger man who loves fast cars, and he kept threatening to vomit when I drove it hard, too. 

I’ve driven quite a few cars that you can use make your passenger sick, or hurt their necks - one obvious competitor in the shape of a Porsche Taycan Turbo S comes to mind - but it’s very rare that a vehicle is so intense it can make you, the driver, feel bilious.

Yes, you do bring this on yourself, by choosing to push this Performance anywhere near its limits through particularly sharp and intestine-shaped roads like the canyons outside Malibu Tesla chose to launch it on. 

On longer, sweeping bends it was far more of a joy, and less physically punishing, but in the tight stuff it often felt like corners were being thrown at you, as if you were driving behind the Millennium Falcon and being pulled along in its wake.

The brakes, special new sporting ones with track-ready pads, were up to the task, even though it often felt like they couldn’t possibly pull you up from the speeds you were doing.

And yes, it was entirely my fault that the very first time I even gently prodded the throttle and it launched me ahead past a California Highway Patrol officer, that was my fault too. Three minutes into the drive, holding an American fine, I had already deduced that perhaps this car was too fast for my own good.

But lots of EVs are fast in a straight line, you’re really comparing the length and depth of your “oooophhh” sounds at this point, but where this one succeeds is by being a lot better in the handling and ride and cornering departments than most.

Tesla’s stated goal with this car was to move beyond straight-line speed, to become more than a one-trick pony, and to do that it’s given the Performance a stiffer structure overall and updated the springs and stabiliser bars. 

Aerodynamic changes have reduced drag by five per cent, delivered a 36 per cent lift reduction, and a 55 per cent improvement in front-to-rear lift balance.

Tesla’s own, in-house version of adaptive dampers, not an option but included in every Performance, work with the car’s 'Vehicle Dynamics Controller' through its various modes - 'Insane' and 'Track' being the most… ludicrous - to immediately respond to driver inputs. 

The Performance rides well on LA’s awful concrete freeways but feels absolutely nailed down when you attack even a bumpy driver’s road.

This version also has a lot more power going to the rear wheels, to help it feel more sports-car playful and to fire out of bends the way an enthusiast’s car should. And make no mistake, I met them, the people behind this car are serious driving enthusiasts (although they demur, slightly, on whether their boss is one).

Track mode will allow some serious adjustability, drifting ability and fun, so the kind of people who want to hurl around a racing circuit in silence will love it.

Perhaps the only let downs are that it still feels a bit austere inside, just not very special, and that the steering is just a bit digital, soft and uninvolving, compared to the cars they clearly benchmarked against - BMWs and Porsches. 

This is the probably the best-driving example of the Fiat 500 I’ve ever climbed into. Sure, it’s not quite as engaging as self-shifting a perky little manual, but it’s smoother, easier and more comfortable, and a whole lot better than ICE vehicles fitted with Fiat's odd dual-logic automatic gearbox.

The EV transition genuinely suits the little Fiat, admittedly sapping a little character, but also thoroughly modernising the drive experience, with smooth, constant acceleration, sharp-enough steering and a ride that’s mostly settled, only really becoming crashy over the bigger road imperfections.

The small dimensions here also help the EV reincarnation. Yes, it’s heavier than you might expect, weighing in at 1290kg (tare), with the batteries adding several hundred kilograms to the equation, but the 500e still doesn’t feel overly heavy, with the little Fiat remaining pretty light on its feet.

There are three drive modes on board, including the catchy Sherpa mode (because it will help get you where you’re going), which, when you’re running low on battery, kills the climate control and anything else it needs to preserve range and get you home. 

But you can’t shake the feeling that the 500e is a little expensive for such a specialist tool. It’s unashamedly a city car, but one that will cost you more than $50k, and which doesn’t feel quite premium enough in the cabin to justify that asking price.

There’s a heap of active safety stuff on board (again, unusual for a 500), with active cruise control, traffic sign recognition, front, rear and side parking sensors, blind-spot monitoring, AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, and more.

Still, the 500e only secured a four-star ANCAP safety rating, scoring just below the five-star cut off in Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection and Safety Assist, with a lack of a centre airbag not helping.

Again, we've been asked to assume the Performance will come with Tesla's standard four-year/80,000km warranty and roadside assistance. And that the battery and drive unit will fall under an eight-year/192,000km warranty, whichever comes first.

Tesla says it monitors its cars to ascertain when they need servicing, and so it is based on a case-by-case situation. Every 12 months/20,000km is recommended for a general check-up, and includes tyre rotation.

Wiper blades, brake fluid and cabin air filters need replacement every two years while the air-con service is every six years.

Of course, there are no oil changes, filters or spark plugs to replace, and even brake pad wear is less than on an ICE vehicle because of the regenerative braking system. Although it will likely be higher in the Performance variant.

The fly in Fiat’s ointment is its ownership proposition, with a three-year, 150,000km warranty now way below par in Australia these days, even if the battery is covered for the standard eight years. 

Servicing is every 12 months or 15,000kms, and will cost $250 a pop for the first eight years, which is commendably cheap.