Luxury marques, such as Bentley and Volvo, have grabbed first class tickets for the all-electric train, and now Fiat is jumping aboard at the more affordable end.
“Between 2025 and 2030, our product lineup will gradually become electric-only,” Olivier François, CEO of Fiat, said in a YouTube broadcast.
With battery prices expected to keep on falling, Fiat is aiming to “offer electric cars that don’t cost more than internal combustion cars” from around 2025 onwards.
Although the Fiat boss described the brand’s mission as “affordable mobility for all” and said “compromise is not a solution” for climate change, it’s not clear if Fiat will be a pure EV brand across the globe, or just in Europe.
A sizeable portion of the marque’s sales are made in Brazil and Latin America, and it’s uncertain if these markets will be as ready to electrify as quickly as Europe.
François also left the door open for hydrogen, describing the fuel as “the next step”. Hydrogen will likely appear first in the company’s light commercial vehicles, and won’t appear in passenger cars “for ten years, probably”.
Lingotto test track 
At present Fiat has only one pure electric vehicle in its range, the third-generation 500.
The Fiat CEO described the car as a “gamble” as the company could have sold plenty of more of the vehicle if it had petrol engine options.
The city hatch’s largest battery pack is a 42kWh unit, which has a WLTP range rating of 320km.
Bosco Verticale, Milan
The announcement was made during a web chat with architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri, who is most famous for the Bosco Verticale — literally Vertical Forest — pair of apartment buildings in Milan.
Fiat’s test track on the top of the Lingotto building, a former car plant, in Turin will be turned into Europe’s largest hanging garden with over 28,000 plants.
The repurposed roof is due to be completed in September this year.
