- The tiny Fiat Topolino isn’t technically a car at all.
- A free kit will help turn it into a street-legal, low-speed vehicle, but that’s still not the target audience.
- Instead, the real buyers of the Topolino are communities where micro mobility is already king.
Fiat’s adorable Topolino EV has come to America. The tiny low-speed quadricycle—that’s right, it’s not technically a car—is a huge attention grabber. But if you can’t legally drive it on the road, it raises a pretty big question: what are you supposed to do with it?
It is, after all, something more comparable in size to a mobility scooter than a car. Plus, it’s designed for use in European cities to squeeze between buildings that may have been built during the reign on Charlemagne, not eight-lane highways with SUVs. But Fiat may have found a surprisingly lucrative answer on who might be buying.
Photo by: Fiat
It turns out that the Topolino might just be the next-best thing for people who are buying golf carts.
In case you didn’t know, America has a pretty big market for golf carts. Its annual market is worth around $1 billion dollars, according to Automotive News, and there are roughly 2.3 million people in the U.S. who own them. They’re becoming increasingly popular in gated neighborhoods, beach towns, retirement communities, and resorts. Who knew?
Fiat initially shipped around 300 units to the U.S. ahead of its official October launch after CEO Olivier Francois said that dealers convinced him to ship some units over early. Now those dealerships are already moving the sub-$15,000 Fiats like…well, golf carts.
Automotive News gives some examples:
In Florida, Alfa Romeo Fiat of Daytona sold its first six Topolinos immediately. In Minnesota, Schmelz Countryside Alfa Romeo and Fiat sold five before they hit the lot. Golling Alfa Romeo Fiat in Michigan has sold 10 of its 14 and already ordered an additional nine.
In Europe, the appeal of the Topolino is practicality. It gets up to 46 miles of range, can reach speeds of up to 28 MPH, and can plug into a normal outlet since it’s battery is just 5.4 kWh. Plus, in some European countries, teenagers can operate it at just 14 years old.
America throws a wrench into that formula a bit. The EV is limited to just 19 MPH here in the States and you can’t drive it on public streets without its Street-Legal Conversion kit that bumps its top speed up from 19 MPH to 25 MPH (technically qualifying it as a Low Speed Vehicle—just keep in mind it won’t have crumple zones or air bags).
Fiat says this kit will be free and available to buyers in the fall.
The target audience isn’t the average American car buyer. It’s the folks that Fiat doesn’t need to convince to buy it; those in communities where micro mobility is already present and golf cars function as tiny neighborhood cars.
Francois isn’t expecting its little mouse to be a high-volume seller. Its launch is an experiment, and if nothing else, “it puts a big smile on everyone’s face.”
