It may be true that the smallest production cars ever built make modern compacts look huge, but everything’s relative. The tiniest new car you can get for 2026 in the U.S. — the Fiat 500e — is still quite small when compared to most other rides today. Oh, and speaking of tiny, that word applies to the current Fiat lineup as well. It only includes the 500e and the adorable Fiat Topolino low-speed vehicle that was designed for stunting on your suburban neighbors – not traveling on U.S. highways.
The all-electric city car is a mere 142.95 inches long and 74.12 inches wide (including its mirrors), and its height is 66.3 inches. Note that the 2026 Mini Cooper is even more vertically challenged, as it checks in at 57.6 inches in height, yet it’s nearly 16 inches longer and roughly 3.5 inches wider than the 500e. Meanwhile, for comparison’s sake, one of the biggest new passenger vehicles available right now is another EV, the Cadillac Escalade IQL — a 750-horsepower, 19-foot-long American luxury beast. To be exact, the IQL stretches a tick over 19 feet, at 228.5 inches, and it’s a whopping 94.1 inches wide.
The 500e’s sticker price is also on the small side, at least compared to the iQL. The Fiat starts at $35,700 before a $1,995 destination charge, while the king-sized Cadillac starts at $130,405 and requires a destination charge of $2,895. Unfortunately for Fiat, the cost of the 500e doesn’t look so good when you look at other small EVs like the Nissan Leaf (MSRP: $29,990) or even the Chevrolet Equinox (MSRP: $34,995).
The 500e is bigger on the inside than you may think
All that said, you’ve got to hand it to Fiat engineers. They managed to carve out a surprising amount of interior space in the 500e’s cabin in their efforts to help win America’s heart. You’ll find a total of 101.2 cubic feet of interior volume waiting there. True, only about 7.5 cubic feet is dedicated for rear storage behind the back seats. But the 93.7 cubic feet leftover for passengers is more than in some noticeably larger cars. For example, the 2026 Toyota Corolla only has 88.6 cubic feet of passenger space despite being almost 40 inches longer than the Fiat. The 2026 Hyundai Venue SUV checks in with 91.9 cubic feet of passenger space, even though it’s roughly 16 inches longer than the 500e.
The Fiat’s specs also translate into a real-world advantage. When Jalopnik’s own Collin Woodard drove the 500e in 2024, he was still able to fit a 6-footer in the rear seats. Also noting the car’s relatively meager 149-mile range, the bottom line was that the Fiat proved why city cars are best as EVs.
The flipside to the roomy interior is a standard cabin-equipment list that’s a bit lacking, especially in a car that sets you back close to $38,000 as a starting point. Remember, the 2026 Nissan Leaf opens at $29,990, before $1,575 in destination charges, and it comes standard with blind-spot monitoring/intervention, rear cross-traffic alert, a driver-attention monitor, a surround-view system, a 12.3-inch touchscreen, and even Nissan’s ProPILOT Assist driver-assist system — none of which is standard for the base 500e.
