Stellantis wants thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars for a quadricycle. Not a car. A quadricycle. Which is what you call a vehicle when it failed the test to be called a car.
The Fiat Topolino looks like a Fiat 500 that got left in the dryer too long. Functions like a golf cart. Costs more than a used Honda Civic. Stellantis examined the American market and decided what we really need is a fourteen-thousand-dollar European golf cart that can't go on the highway.
Some retail trader in Michigan is already calculating monthly payments. He's telling his wife it's an investment in the EV future. She's asking why it tops out at twenty-eight miles per hour. He's not listening. He's already on the Stellantis website configuring colors.
The Topolino gets a range of forty-seven miles. Perfect for driving to the grocery store and back. Assuming the grocery store is within twenty-three miles. And you don't need to run any other errands. And you're fine sitting in what's essentially a motorized shoe.
Stellantis could have priced this thing at nine thousand. Maybe eight. Made it an actual value proposition for city dwellers who need something cheap and electric. Instead they saw Americans paying seventy grand for Rivian trucks and thought yeah, we can get fourteen thousand for our fancy golf cart.
The company press release probably called it "accessible urban mobility." Translation: we built the Fischer-Price version of a car and you're going to buy it anyway because it says Fiat on the front and you saw someone driving one in Rome that one time.
Can't wait to see the first Topolino broken down on the shoulder of I-95 with the hazards on, driver explaining to the cop that technically it was never supposed to be on the highway in the first place.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment