Testing out some of the smaller EVs as the company I work for has finally decided to offer the salary sacrifice thing, yes probably a bit late as it’s not as good as It was and car prices on these things struggle to be good as it seems like companies are buffing the numbers but as I don’t have a car ( I have use of many but not my own despite having bought all the cars :roll: ) thought I might use it. Always liked a smaller car, for the past 20 years I don’t think my personal use motors have been much more than 4m or over 1100kg, so EVs are a challenge for me as they are all massive tanks like my family cars.(well modern cars in general)
Drove the Abarth 600e 240bhp today, not too bad, a little bland looking, needs more stickers like my old Abarth (will I ever grow up….
) suffers from the usual low end EV problems, rough interior plastics etc, but it was a reasonably chuckable thing, you need some strong arms for the EV FWD torque steer/scrabble nonsense, but I don’t mind that so much reminds me of the old hatches I used to hoon around in, part of the charm so long as the front end doesn’t hop off the road it’s all good.
It’s a nice enough car, quite basic, I felt the 500e was better inside in some ways, good use of alcantara to hide cheap plastics there but the 600e is a much more usable car. its main blight is road noise at motorway speeds, much better experience past 60 than the 500, now flys to over 100mph on my private test track, not fair off the performance of hot hatches of old before they all went silly power and 4WD etc. body control at speed over lumpy bumpy stuff not the best, the suspension struggling with the weight but for most driving it’d be fine.
It was a Stellantis dealership so got to have a poke around the Alfa Junior, whose rear always looked challenging to me in photos so wasn’t even a consideration, in the metal though I didn’t mind it and thought it looked like a decent car, it was the Veloce 280bhp, dealer gave me the keys and took that for a drive, mad how two fundamentally similar cars can feel so different, the Alfa much more grown up, despite more power much more controlled front end (Still need good arm strength
) a bit more comfortable, though I have to say the less sorted, lower power Abarth felt more fun, the Veloce also did the trick of the alcantara on some of the hard plastics so felt better too, I liked it a lot (I have had a few Alfa so perhaps my Alfa bias coming through ) Shame this is in the ECS bracket now, makes it a fair bump over the Abarth 600e 280 or a A290GTS
Nice that these cars had buttons for the core things I want to touch on the wheel and in the dash and quick shortcuts for safety disablement.
At one moment I wondered if the car had been fitted with a engine, such was the NVH from what I can only guess are the cooling fans after a hammering
it's only 17C outside that can't be a good sign for hard summer use?
Next to try for me will be born VZ and A290GTS, need to get a wiggle on I’ve got a couple of months before my daughter wants her Up back, its fair to say jumping back into the Up GTI it did not make me sad despite all it loose to these new things with its measly 115bhp washing machine motor and manual box it felt a lot more interactive and you notice that 500 less kgs.
Not sure about the A290GTS, I tried a normal R5 and I could hardly get in it, the opening is so small and I'm so chunky, weird, tend to only have this issue on sportscars/saloons.
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