For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Nissan Leaf have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Fiat 500e doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Nissan Leaf are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Fiat 500e doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the Leaf are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The 500e doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
The Nissan Leaf has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags help prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The 500e doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
The Leaf has standard Secondary Collision Mitigation Braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The 500e doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The Leaf has standard Rear Automatic Braking that use rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a collision. The 500e doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The Leaf has a standard Around View® Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The 500e only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
The Leaf has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the 500e’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Leaf has standard Rear Cross Traffic Alert, helping the driver avoid collisions. Fiat charges extra for Rear Cross Path Detection on the 500e.
Both the Leaf and the 500e have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front wheel drive, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and driver alert monitors.
The Nissan Leaf weighs 1003 to 1417 pounds more than the Fiat 500e. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts. Crosswinds also affect lighter cars more.