The beloved micro-car Fiat Panda, the brand’s best-selling model in Europe, will get a new look next summer, as a larger model that’s available in a full electric version for around €23,300 (about $25K).
Fiat suggests the name will be New Panda, which is lacking a bit in imagination but sticks to the naming style it has adopted for the Fiat 500. The Fiat 500 comes in both ICE and electric versions, with the EV using the name New 500 (also dubbed the 500e). Panda’s ICE version, too, will be called Panda 500, writes Automotive News Europe. Parent company Stellantis has also registered the name Pandini, which we may see being used on a special series of the current models.
Of course, Stellantis plans to keep production going for the third-generation ICE Panda through until 2026 at least, or longer if the EU postpones its emissions regulations, the brand told Automotive News Europe.
The Fiat Panda EV version will be produced at a plant in Kragujevac, Serbia, where Stellantis made a €190 million ($200 million) deal to get its EV production up and running.
The new Panda will be based on Stellantis’s Smart Car architecture, used in the Citroen New e-C3. The automaker plans to use the platform in seven models, according to Automotive News Europe, in hopes of bracing itself against the expected barrage of small, cheap EVs coming from China.
While exact dimensions, of course, aren’t available, and neither is the exact price, the New Panda will likely be about the same size as the New e-C3, which is 4,010 mm in length, 1,760 mm in width, and 1,570 mm in height. That will be bump up from the current Panda, with is 300 mm shorter and more than 100 mm narrower.
The Citroen New e-C3 debuts next spring at €23,300 in Germany, and the report says that the New Panda should be around that price range too. An “urban-focused version” of the Citroen New e-C3 with a range of 200 km launches in early 2025 at under €20,000.
Like the Twingo and any number of insanely popular small European cars, the Pandas won’t be making it across the pond to the US. But the Fiat 500e will return to the US as one of the most affordable options on the market. US sales of the 2024 Fiat 500e start at under $33,000.