Abarth 600e Scorpionissima Gets UK Price Slashed By £2100

UK deliveries of the Abarth 600e haven’t even begun yet, but Abarth’s already announced that the top version – the 276bhp Scorpionissima – is getting its price slashed by £2100.

While a starting price for the Scorpionissima of £41,975 was originally announced last October, Abarth has now dropped that down to £39,875. That’s not quite as drastic as the £4220 reduction its baby sibling, the 500e, got last month. Like that discount, though, the reduction is, on the surface at least, motivated by government policy.

The 500e’s price drop was partially a result of Fiat applying its ‘E Grant’, a response to the fact that the British government itself no longer offers any pricing incentives to buyers of electric cars.

The £2100 discount on the 600e, meanwhile, is to ensure it steers clear of the UK’s Expensive Car Supplement. First introduced in 2017, it means that owners of cars costing £40,000 or more pay an extra £410 per year on top of the car’s standard tax rate. The extra charge starts a year after initial registration, and lasts until the car’s five years old.

Electric cars have so far been exempt from this, but that’ll change on 1 April this year, which would have put Scorpionissima buyers over the threshold. The reduction, then, means that the car will not only be £2100 cheaper to buy, but owners will save another £1640 if they hang on to it for five years. The £36,795 starting price of the base model, 237bhp 600e remains unchanged.

Another, more cynical view would be that Abarth is attempting to stimulate demand with these price cuts for its EVs – the 500e hasn’t exactly been a sales phenomenon, although since the 600e it hasn’t yet arrived in Britain, we don’t know if it’ll be the same story.

We’re also yet to drive the 600e, but since in Scorpionissima form it’s mechanically identical to the Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce, complete with mechanical limited-slip diff, we suspect it’ll be a decent little thing to drive. Good enough to sway us away from a traditional petrol hot hatch? We’ll have to wait and see.