It’s still selling like crazy.
Even if you can’t buy one in the UK right now—thanks to strict Zero Emission Vehicle mandates—the Panda remains the undisputed king in Italy. It grabbed more than 70% last year. Not a percentage of the company’s profit, mind you, but of the sales themselves. The 2012 design is ancient. It doesn’t matter. Italians love it.
Fiat knows this. Gaetano Thorel, their European boss, refuses to pretend EV uptake here mirrors what happens in Northern Europe. It doesn’t. People are still buying gas cars. So Fiat plans to serve them. A proper petrol successor to the current model is on the table. Alongside a new electric option priced under £15k.
We have a duty… to think of the millions of Pandas owners and give them a solution… based on their needs not based on regulations.
There is an EV project moving forward too. It shares a chassis with the revived Citroën 2CV from the same Stellantis family. That one targets the EU’s future E-car rules, slotting in as the true entry-level electric Fiat, sitting just above the Topolino and the Multipla quadricycles. Will they slap the Panda badge on the electric one?
Maybe.
Thorel admits they haven’t decided. The brand equity is massive, the emotional attachment stronger. He could easily put the Panda name on both cars. Fiat already did that with the 500—the old gas version and the new electric one share a name, almost nothing else. He hints at a “multi-energy solution.” Basically, keep the people happy with a combustion option today, while they figure out what tomorrow requires.
What else could they do? Abandon their biggest demographic seems impossible.
He won’t say if it’s a fresh ICE build or just tweaking the existing engine, but he insists the “Panda population” deserves an answer now, not later. And there’s one other reason for this hesitation and strategy: jobs.
Building those two cheap EVs at the Pomigliano plant secures its future. Small cars are Italian territory. Fiat won’t yield that ground without a fight, or at least a very loud plan. The engine might change, but the territory stays put. For now, that has to be enough.
