We investigate the Coulomb excitation of low-lying states of unstable nuclei in intermediate energy collisions ($E_{lab}sim10-500$ MeV/nucleon). It is shown that the cross sections for the $E1$ and $E2$ transitions are larger at lower energies, much
less than 10 MeV/nucleon. Retardation effects and Coulomb distortion are found to be both relevant for energies as low as 10 MeV/nucleon and as high as 500 MeV/nucleon. Implications for studies at radioactive beam facilities are discussed.
