Fiat has never had a particularly successful time selling cars in the United States, from the early days of small two-seat sports cars to the Italian brand’s 21st century attempt at reentering the market with new 500s. Fiat is known for its small, uniquely Italian city cars and small sports cars, and Americans aren’t big consumers of either of those market segments so it’s tough to make a case for its presence in our hyper-competitive car market. Because of this, we’re left to watch Fiat produce its most quirky and innovative cars for other markets, like the recently announced hybridized version of the new 500, which is available, in Europe at least, with a manual transmission.
If you’re reading this from outside the U.S., allow me to add some context; manual hybrids are about as rare as hens’ teeth out here. The first-generation Honda Insight, the first-generation Honda Civic Hybrid and the Honda CR-Z are the only three hybrids ever sold in the United States that were available with a manual transmission, so that’s why this is newsworthy.
A diminutive manual hybrid would never sell well in the U.S.
With as much noise as enthusiasts make about bringing small, niche, manual transmission vehicles to the United States, you’d think there was a market for them, but in reality, their sales prospects are bleak. As much as we lament the death of manuals and complain about how big and heavy new cars are, we don’t buy the cars we beg for. We are often forced to make concessions to practicality and buy those bigger, heavier, often SUVs because we have kids, or we might someday have kids, or we might someday need to haul something, or we might have to drive on a gravel road once or twice, so naturally we need a four-wheel-drive pickup truck, just in case.
If Fiat brought the 500 Hybrid to the U.S. it probably wouldn’t sell in numbers meaningful enough to justify the cost of making it meet U.S. standards, and Fiat would sell even fewer manual 500 Hybrids. As fun as a manual hybrid Fiat 500 sounds in concept, the reality is America would never embrace it, so the tiny proportion of Americans who like the idea of such a car is left to admire the chic little hybrid from afar. Fiat just began pre-production of the 500 Hybrid in Italy and aims to have full-fledged production models in production by the fourth quarter of the year. Just not for American consumption, since as of now, Fiat has made no announcements about bringing it to the U.S.. Americans only get the all-electric 500e, which doesn’t have gears to shift.
Fiat
