The upcoming Fiat Grand Panda will not only be one of the cheapest electric cars when it goes on sale in Europe next year, it will also be the first to offer an integrated charging cable.
Currently, EV owners are forced to roll up their heavy and complicated cables before attempting to stow them away in a storage area, usually under the boot floor. A real pain if the storage area is already crammed full of bags and gear.
To make matters worse, these wires have likely been dragged across the floor and collected all kinds of dirt that inevitably finds its way onto a brand new white shirt and all over the interior of your vehicle.
Fiat's innovative solution, which it somewhat overly describes as “reinventing” charging, involves integrating a coiled cable that retracts into the vehicle's body when not in use.
A recent Instagram video from Autocar (above) shows the flexible cable extending from a carefully concealed recess embedded in the front grille.
Fiat says the integrated AC charging cable is only designed for rates up to 7.4kW, due to the cooling requirements needed for much higher charging rates. Instead, a separate DC charging port is placed on the side of the car for faster charging rates of up to 100kW.
The Fiat Grande Panda is set to feature a tiny 44kWh battery pack to keep costs down, anyway, meaning owners can add 120 miles to the new Panda's battery packs using the lower-power onboard charging cable in just over four hours.
A smart solution
While range anxiety remains one of the biggest barriers to owning an EV, dealing with cumbersome cables and the whole charging issue is also enough to deter many buyers.
Fiat's response is clever, as it removes the need to carry awkward cables around in often undersized storage areas, eliminates the risk of accidentally leaving one behind, and effectively prevents said cables from dragging along the ground.
While some will scoff at the 7.4kW charging speed limit, it shouldn’t actually have an impact on everyday use. Fiat’s solution is intended for lower-powered, often home-based wall chargers, which mostly require EV owners to provide their own charging cables.
Faster charging stations, such as those found on the public network, are equipped with much bulkier wiring to manage the amount of power flowing through them. In this case, Fiat also offers a 100kW charging port on the side of the Grand Panda for this very reason.
The last time we saw a solution like this was in the tiny Renault Twizy, which had a similar coiled cable that sat in a small compartment at the front. However, that vehicle was only capable of charging at rates of up to 3kW, thanks to its tiny battery pack.
Not only will the Fiat be affordable (with a suggested price of around £22,000 or AU$28,000 when it goes on sale), it also looks set to boast a number of useful features aimed at making the transition to EVs less painful. Who said Pandas were dumb?
