2012 Fiat 500 Sport on 2040-cars

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Fiat's 500 battery EV to start at $23,550 in Italy after incentives

MILAN — Fiat Chrysler's new electric 500 will have an entry price of 25,900 euros ($30,600) but is subject to a 6,000-euro incentive offered by Italy's government that brings the price down to $19,900 ($23,550), a senior executive from the Italian-American automaker said on Thursday. Fiat Chrysler will start selling a full range of the electric version (BEV) of its popular city car this weekend, after officially unveiling it and offering it in two premium configurations earlier this year. Olivier Francois, head of the Fiat brand and FCA's chief marketing officer, said that the group would also offer two more expensive versions of the 500 BEV. The EV incentive will bring their prices down to 23,700 euros and 25,200 euros. The cheapest version will have a range of 185 kilometers, while for others the range will be 320 km. As well as the baseline incentive, buyers of electric cars in Italy are offered a further 4,000-euro discount if they scrap an old car. "If you have an old car to scrap, the new 500 BEV could be even cheaper than its petrol-engined sister, whose most popular version costs around 17,000 euros," Francois said. The 500 BEV, which is part of a plan announced in 2018 to invest 5 billion euros in Italy up to 2021, is FCA's first major step into electric-powered driving. Competing electric cars include the Mini Cooper SE, which has a starting price of 33,900 euros ($40,000) in Italy before incentives, and Peugeot's e-208, starting at 33,750 euros. Related Video:

Argentinians find stash of never-registered, brand-new 30-year-old Italian cars

While much of the world is sheltering in place, several new, never-registered Italian and French cars exited a 27-year confinement in Argentina. They were left for dead in an abandoned dealership that sold Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Peugeot models in a city named Avellaneda near Buenos Aires, the country's capital. Details surrounding the dealership are murky. Argentina's Autoblog (no relation to us) reported it closed at some point during the 1990s after the owner and his son died in violent circumstances. Automotive archaeology tells your author it likely shut its doors in 1993, because that's the only year in which the first-generation Fiat Ducato launched in 1981 and the post-facelift Fiat Tipo, axed in 1995, overlapped. Both are clearly visible in the photos. What's certain is that someone finally inherited the property in 2020 and wanted the cars gone as quickly as possible in order to sell it. The anonymous owner asked Kaskote Calcos, a local body shop that also runs a used-car lot, to haul them away via Instagram. We're guessing the firm didn't need to be asked twice.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Axel By Kaskote (@kaskotecalcos) on Mar 24, 2020 at 1:57pm PDT Many of the cars hidden in the dealership were made by Fiat; the photos show several examples of the Tipo, an Uno, a Tempra, and the aforementioned Ducato. An Alfa Romeo 33 wagon and a Peugeot 405 were also stashed in the trove. Most were stored indoors so they weren't damaged by sunlight or humidity, and images of the cars taken after they were pressure-washed confirm they're in like-new condition inside and out. We're told some even started, though for the love of valves and pistons we hope they got a new timing belt before being fired up.  Kaskote Calcos hasn't revealed what it will do with the cars. None are particularly sought-after, they're economy cars that were mass-produced and mass-destroyed, and their current values reflect that. You can get a post-facelift Uno for the price of a few Peroni pints in Italy. The fact that they're new, never-registered examples will undoubtedly increase their appeal, even if registering them could require slashing through jungles of red tape. As a side note, finding a 405 beached in a Fiat dealership isn't as random as it might sound.

FCA is setting a five-year strategy: Here's how the last one played out

We're slightly more than four years removed from Sergio Marchionne last five-year plan for FCA, a tell-all where the Italian-American automaker divulged its plans for the 2014 through 2018 model years. It was a grand affair, where Sergio told FCA investors that all was right in Auburn Hills, Alfa Romeo and Maserati were making comebacks, and the fifth-gen Dodge Viper received a mid-cycle refresh. You can read every last one of those past predictions right here. We're on our way to Europe to see Sergio's sequel, coming out Friday straight from FCA's Italian headquarters. (Bloomberg reports a plan to expand Jeep and Ram globally, combine Alfa Romeo and Maserati into a single division for an eventual spinoff, and downsizing Fiat and Chrysler. Also, EVs.) But before we arrive in Italy and find out exactly what Marchionne has planned for 2019 through 2023 as his last act as CEO, let's take a minute to tally up the results of his last term based on the same scoresheet we used in 2014. Now, we're only five months into 2018, so much of this — including vehicles like the Ram HD and Jeep Grand Wagoneer — could still debut this year. For those, we'll mark things TBD. We're not going to draw any conclusions or make any objectionable remarks. We're simply going to let the stats speak for themselves.