This tiny EV is cute and cool – but is it worth $59k?

A downside, other than the price, is the range. It’s officially 253 kilometres from the 42 kWh battery, and less in the real world, particularly if you use the go-fast drive modes. On the other hand, regular recharging is easy enough. A battery this small can be topped up overnight with a standard powerpoint.

Overall, the Abarth is a clever mix of cute and cool. To enhance its sport credentials, there’s a body kit and an interior with Alcantara-wrapped sports seats and steering wheel. There are a few hard plastics inside, letting down a generally classy interior with nice touches such as aluminium pedals.

Abarth badges and logos abound, including prominent scorpions on the rear flanks. The exterior colours are vibrant in hue and name: Antidote White, Acid Green, Adrenaline Red and Poison Blue. Our car was in Venom Black, a $990 option. It looked terrific – while clean.

As with the Fiat, Abarth’s 500e is relatively roomy up front, all things considered, and the rear seats are fine for smallish children or very tolerant adults.

Chassis-wise, there’s conventional springing (MacPherson struts up front and torsion beam at rear) with sports shock absorbers and four-wheel disc brakes.

The short wheelbase and taut chassis (not to mention the 18-inch wheels and low-profile tyres) ensure it bounces around quite a bit on uneven surfaces, while front-wheel drive means it’s not that hard to unhook the front tyres. Still, it’s fun, nimble, chuckable and easy to drive: just flatten the accelerator and you get smooth instant torque; lift off, and the regeneration makes it pull up quickly.

That’s providing you are in the right drive mode. There are three – Turismo, Scorpion Street and Scorpion Track – each lifting power and steering weight, but reducing lift-off regeneration. It would be nice to have these attributes separated; as it is, only Turismo gives you one-pedal driving.

One of the features that has attracted the most attention is the external sound generator, which makes this otherwise near silent EV sound like a loud and angry petrol machine. You wonder if they considered spitting out some fake smog as well.

Modelled on the exhaust note of the petrol Abarth 695, the synthesised sound changes with your throttle inputs, but it doesn’t replicate gear changes, so at speed it’s like you are stuck in second. It’s fun for a short while; fortunately there’s an off switch buried in the menus.

Overall, if you’re not price sensitive, and don’t have far to go, this electric Abarth is one enjoyable trinket.