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My Week in a $15,000 Microcar: Joy, Guilt and 25-MPH Road Rage

Fiat’s all-electric Topolino isn’t fast and doesn’t get far. But the Italian company thinks it’s just the car some Americans need.

By Ryan Felton, WSJ

Oct. 2, 2026 5:30 am ET

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—“What the f— is that?” a driver of a luxury sedan exclaimed at a busy intersection. “Is that a real car?” a student in this college town asked. “Aww,” said countless passersby.

Indeed, the Fiat Topolino—a $15,000 electric microcar that tops out at 25 miles an hour—is a real car that Americans can buy right now. A Ford Fusion driver who sped by me in a left-hand turn lane of a 35 mph road may disagree.

The Topolino, which went on sale this summer, is a bet by the Italian brand that Americans in two-car households may be open to a much smaller and slower ride for their second vehicle.

At just over 1,000 pounds, it seats two people and is powered by a small electric battery that gets 46 miles of range on a full charge.

It is sold in one color, mint green, and comes in two variants. One has doors, a heater and a glass sunroof. Then there is the “Dolce Vita,” which swaps in ropes for doors and includes a rollable soft-top roof. Many onlookers ask if it’s even street-legal. (It is.)

“This is so not functional,” said Alexa LaBella, 21, after jetting across a busy street to get a closer look at a Topolino, which translates to “little mouse” in Italian.

But so far, demand has exceeded expectations. Fiat, which initially shipped 300 Topolinos to the U.S., says 30% of its dealers are signed up to sell the pint-size car.

The Stellantis-owned company knows the Topolino’s got a particular audience. “It doesn’t step on anything else that we do as a company,” said Andrew Waterhouse, Fiat’s brand head in the U.S. “There’s nothing else like it.”

To see how effective the Topolino is as a runabout in lower-speed U.S. cities, I tested a rope-for-doors variant over several days in my hometown of Ann Arbor. Speed limits here generally stay within the vehicle’s targeted environment. Fiat executives warned I should be ready for gawkers with myriad questions and passersby angling to take photos.

They were right to apprise me.

Within minutes of meeting Waterhouse and seeing the Topolino up close, resident Jay Burlage walked by wondering what he was looking at. At first, he came across as assured that the car could work for him in town, before trailing off.

“I think so? Yeah,” Burlage, 54, said. “Maybe.” He seemed more drawn to the model with doors and a heater.

Shortly after, at a small neighborhood restaurant I raced down a 30 mph road to get to, nearly every patron craned their necks to look. Parallel parking on State Street near the University of Michigan’s campus proved no different. Passersby whipped out their phones to snap photos, while others pointed in awe and disbelief.

At top speeds, I was suddenly very aware of the Topolino’s plastic body panels.

I zipped home. The open-air cabin was freeing and the weather was nice. It was fun—la dolce vita.

Federal regulators created a regulatory path for such “low speed vehicles,” which sit between golf carts and traditional cars, in the late 1990s. It was in response to what they called a growing public interest in using small vehicles to make short trips.

Vehicles like the Topolino that are engineered to max out at between 20 mph and 25 mph are covered and require certain safety equipment such as headlamps, turn signals, parking brakes, rearview mirror, windshields and seat belts. They don’t have air bags and don’t need to pass structural crash tests.

As I used the car to run errands, my initial joyful response gave way to self-consciousness. I ride my bike around town so I’m used to being exposed to other cars, but at top speeds, I was suddenly very aware of the Topolino’s plastic body panels.

After grabbing items for dinner at a Trader Joe’s, I puttered home along a main drag with a 35 mph limit, fully pressing the pedal. The vehicle has the zippy initial acceleration common to EVs, but its top speed proved too much of an inconvenience for others: a stream of drivers passed me in the left-hand turn lane. I felt a pang of guilt for riling them up and realized just how stark the difference is between driving 25 mph and 35 mph.

My guilt eased when I pulled into the drive-through of a pharmacy and the attendant burst out laughing at the sight of the idling microcar.

Fiat is learning as it goes on where Topolino may take hold. Waterhouse says a dealer in the St. Louis area placed an order for several, prompting Fiat to find out why they thought it had a chance of success. The dealer explained there was a retirement community of Italian immigrants where many residents drove golf carts. They wanted the Topolino.

If Fiat finds more people like Jim Summers, the Topolino could find success in America outside of retirement communities.

Summers, who owns an electric bike retailer in Ann Arbor, knew he had to have the car after seeing it this summer. After paying a deposit, a dealer sent a flatbed carrying Michigan’s first Topolino.

“I’ve always wanted something like this,” said Summers, 58.

His home is solar-powered and he drives a Tesla Model 3. But Summers thinks it’ll be a nice fit.

“I hate driving in town,” he said. “But this makes it much easier.”