Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A Stellantis brand is likely to reverse course on a previously announced electrification pivot, citing a customer base that prefers gasoline engines. Crazy, right? And this time, the revolt is happening not here, in the land of V8s, but closer to the company’s home front, in Italy, where Fiat is looking for ways to make its electrified Abarth line relevant to enthusiasts again.
Gaetano Thorel, head honcho over at Fiat Europe, told Autocar that Abarth customers are clamoring for combustion-engine options, prompting the brand to consider adding non-electrified models back to its lineup. According to Thorel, Abarth customers are used to modifying their cars, which is not an option on the company’s EVs.
I’m sure that’s true, strictly speaking, but the argument strikes me as a bit disingenuous. To somebody such as myself who has been overclocking PCs for nearly 30 years, the notion that there’s no headroom to exploit in an electric powertrain rings a bit hollow. I’d wager it’s not only possible, but frankly, a whole lot simpler to do—and that’s probably what scares automakers about giving customers the level of access necessary to do it.
Let me put my nerd glasses back on for just one more second, because my passing comment above sells the PC enthusiast scene a bit short. Not only is it possible to get more performance from most components, but manufacturers learned to embrace it, offering parts with greater headroom from the factory (with the caveat, of course, that exceeding factory tolerances will jeopardize any warranties). Remember when we had that sort of détente in the auto world? These days, it’s the exception, rather than the norm.
But I’ll give Thorel the benefit of the doubt here; maybe there really is no headroom in Fiat’s EVs. They’re built to a price, of course, and that could easily limit any potential even if some of the individual components have more to offer. But in a world of encrypted ECUs and jealously guarded OEM data, how are we to know?
So I’ll leave you with one question: If these Abarth models are truly meant for tuners as we’re being told, their ECUs will be unencrypted, allowing for easy third-party and customer modification, right?
Right?
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