Automotive Business Magazine – Q3 2026 – Digital edition - Flipbook - Page 66
REV I E W
FIAT GRANDE PANDA
The Grande Panda Electric is not a
long distance machine and was never
pretending to be one. The mistake is
mine for asking it to be.
But it's a mistake plenty of buyers will
be tempted into, and they deserve to
know: this is a brilliant 30-miles-a-day
car, and a punishing 250-miles-in-a-day.
The money makes the case
miles. That’s roughly 70% of the brochure
number. The 43.8kWh battery is simply
small, and small batteries have nowhere
to hide once you add speed and cold air.
For the life this car is built for –
the commute, the school run, the
supermarket, the local B road shuffle
– around 140 miles between charges
is completely fine. I charged at home
overnight on the 7kW wallbox, woke up
full, and never gave it a second thought
for five of the seven days.
As a town and suburb car it is faultless
on range, because you never get near the
limit. Then I tried to drive it from Sussex
to Leeds, and it was biblical.
That's a 250 mile run. With a real-world
130 to 140 miles in the tank, it meant a
minimum of two charging stops, each
one a careful negotiation with the gap
between optimism and arithmetic.
The Panda will take up to 100kW on a
DC rapid charger, which is respectable,
but a small battery means you're
stopping more often, even if each stop is
reasonably quick. Maths becomes a part
time job.
You stop earlier than you'd like because
you don't quite trust the range readout,
you arrive at the rapid charger hoping it's
working, and you watch your three hour
journey inflate towards five.
By the time I hit the outskirts of Leeds
I had developed strong feelings about
the M1's charging infrastructure and a
new respect for the humble petrol pump.
None of this is really a criticism of the
car, so much as a warning about how
you use it.
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AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS
Q3 2026
The case for the Panda is at its strongest
on a spreadsheet. The La Prima electric
I ran lists at £24,035 on the road, which
makes it one of the cheapest electric
superminis in Britain. Road tax is a token
£10 in year one and £195 thereafter.
Charge it at home and it sips electricity.
Fiat quotes around £56 a month over
10,000 miles, and on my home tariff that
felt about right.
The hybrid, if you can't charge at home
or you regularly do long runs, starts even
lower at £21,995 and sidesteps the whole
range conversation, at the cost of the
EV's silence and tax advantages.
The natural rivals all circle the same
money. The Renault 5 is the prettier,
sharper driving option and the one to
beat.
The Hyundai Inster is cleverer inside,
but pricier and a touch tighter. The
Citroën ëC3 is the Panda's Stellantis
sibling on the same platform, sharing its
size, range and performance but with
a different character. The Dacia Spring
and Leapmotor T03 are cheaper still but
markedly smaller and slower.
The Panda's trick is to undercut most
of them while being the one with the
most personality – and personality counts
for a lot at this end of the market.
The verdict
The Grande Panda Electric is a small car
made by people who clearly remember
why small cars are worth making.
It's cheerful, characterful, genuinely
practical, dirt cheap to tax and run,
and an absolute pleasure to live with,
provided you live with it the way it's
designed to be lived with. It is not the
sharpest thing to drive, the cabin is built
to a budget, and the real world range
is a long way short of the brochure's
confidence. But buy one to do what it's
for – town, suburbs, the daily local grind,
home charging overnight – and you'll
