Fiat brilliantly integrates charging cable into new Grande Panda

The new Fiat Grande Panda was unveiled nearly two months ago. However, most of us missed its most brilliant feature. Behind the Fiat logo on the front fascia of the electric crossover hides an integrated charging cable that comes out like on a vacuum cleaner.

The electric Grande Panda is the first, but it won’t be the last. Fiat says this brilliant feature will percolate into its other electric vehicles.

Look, ma, no (dirty) hands!

Fiat—and mother company Stellantis—are ramping up their electrification. The last product to date is the new Fiat Grande Panda, a new urban crossover that sits on the same underpinnings as the Citroën ë-C3 and ë-C3 Aircross. However, the Italian brand was allowed to drape it with its own sauce. That includes a charming squared-off design reminiscent of the original 80s Panda and… an ingenious charging cable.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares explains it best: “We are coming up with a solution not to put the charging cable in the mud. You have these fantastic cars, and you first put the cable on the ground. When it’s dirty, you throw it back in your trunk. That’s not very high technology. If you look at vacuum cleaners, they’ve found a better solution.”

Retractable and integrated

The innovation is so simple that it’s brilliant. Behind the Fiat logo on the front fascia—we can’t call it a ‘grill’—sits a Type 2 charging point. Nothing out of the ordinary until you pull on it. Indeed, the plug is connected to a long, yellow spiral cable that springs out of the car. To put it simply, it’s like a vacuum cleaner.

The advantages are numerous. First, there is no need to pull a cable from the trunk and plug it into both sockets. Second, the spiral cable keeps its tension and doesn’t fall to the ground. Why no one thought of it before Fiat is a mystery.

Only for AC charging

The most eager-eyed will have spotted that the new electric Fiat Grande Panda still features a conventional charge port on the driver-side C-pillar. That port will be used for DC fast charging, which the Grande Panda can do at speeds up to 100 kW.

The intelligent integrated front charging cable will be used for AC charging only. That’s mainly due to the heat generated by electricity going through the spiral cable. Nonetheless, that yellow cable will allow the Grande Panda to charge up to 7.4 kW, typically on a home wall box or an urban charge point. This will bring around 200 km of range in the Fiat’s 44 kWh battery in four hours and ten minutes.