Abarth is going against the grain: it is dropping combustion engines entirely and focusing on electric vehicles

Manufacturers around the world are making serious decisions regarding the electrification of their models. Although they are not definitively backing away from building electric cars, many are shifting their efforts towards hybrid models of various types. This is not the case for Abarth, which seems clear on the matter. Electrification is the future of the automotive industry, and it wants to continue down that path.

They don’t even consider the presence of hybrid models, since the brand is convinced that electric cars will dominate the future of the automotive industry. For a few months now, it has no longer manufactured models with combustion engines, and its efforts are focused on building electric models, based, as always, on FIAT models.

In some parts of South America you can still find cars in the Pulse and Fastback variants with combustion engines, but in Europe you can only find the models derived from the 500e and the 600e. No more combustion-engine models will arrive in Europe, as the brand’s managers do not believe that regulations make them viable in the European context.

As an argument, they point out that combustion-engine vehicles with emissions above 180 g/km will have to pay a road tax of between 1,000 and 2,000 euros per year in Italy. This makes the cost of owning a car of this type quite expensive, a cost that will not exist with an electric car.

Fiat recently announced that it would bring to market a hybrid version of the Fiat 500e, and many have hoped for the possibility that Abarth would make a sporty version of the model. But the brand has already assured that it will not backtrack on its decision and will not return to combustion engines.

For the moment, Abarth is not ruling out the possibility of taking other Fiat models and converting them using the brand’s DNA, giving them a sporty touch. But what it has also made clear is that, for now, Abarth is not going to build a car from scratch, but will focus on transforming Fiat models.