VIDEO | Coming Soon: Dacia Spring EV - Price, Features and Release Date

Dacia has announced that the new Spring will cost from just £14,995, making it the cheapest new electric car on sale today - by some distance. Assuming you don't count the Citroen Ami, though... which you shouldn't because that's a quadricycle, technically. The Spring is available to order now in either Expression or Extreme trim - Expression being the mid-spec trim in Europe, making the car look even better value for UK buyers.
Alex Legouix took a good look around the Spring, so hit play above for all the details. Or read on... • The Spring is a five-door, four-seat city car, making it the smallest model Dacia has ever brought to the UK. • It's been on sale in Europe for a couple of years already and has sold very well. • The version coming to the UK is updated significantly, with improved cabin quality, design tweaks and more safety equipment. • It has a 26.8kWh battery delivering up to 143 miles of range. • A choice of two low-powered motors with either 44- or 65 horsepower, but both capable of a maximum speed of 78mph. • Order books are open now (March 2024), with prices from £14,995.

Updates to the new Spring compared to the European version include Dacia's latest signature daytime running LEDs. The grille is smartened up too, now a thin gloss black bar running between the headlamps. The fact that Dacia has decided not to offer basic 'Essential' spec cars in the UK means that every UK-bound Spring will get a decent amount of standard kit. Most notably, a central infotainment touchscreen, a reversing camera, and alloy wheels. Standard safety kit includes emergency braking assist with vehicle and pedestrian detection, lane keeping assist, and driver attention warning. This is good, because the European Spring notoriously scored just one star in its Euro NCAP crash test.
Although it only has a small battery and a low-powered drivetrain, analysis of the Dacia Spring’s connected services has shown that owners in Europe use them for less than 20 miles a day, drive them at an average 16mph, and – in 75 per cent of cases – charge them exclusively at home for an average of 3.5 hours. This data is relevant here, because it means that while Dacia calls this a ‘city car’, it is in fact not designed to be used in the city alone. To that end, the Spring has mini-SUV styling – it’s like a boil-washed Duster, ultra-compact for easy urban use.

Dacia cabins aren’t known for soft-touch plastics and plush materials, but that’s how the company manages to sell its products so cheaply, and the interiors of its cars are always pleasant and reasonably well-equipped. The Spring seats four adults and the boot is large by the standards of the small SUV class, at 308 litres. That's almost identical to the boot space in an electric Vauxhall Corsa.
At its core the Spring is a no-frills sort of EV, so its features are largely concerned with practicality and cost-effectiveness. Dacia's YouClip system is standard, for example, which allows drivers to attach various convenience items - phone trays and additional cup holders, stuff like that. We spoke to the chief designer of the Spring at the Geneva Motor Show recently and asked him which features he's most proud of. His response: the plastic coloured inserts in the dashboard, which lift the cabin ambience for no additional cost, basically, and the door protector strips running along the length of the car. Same principle: cheap to manufacture, cheap to repair. A digital driver's display is about as techy as it gets, because that's a functional necessity for keeping an eye on the state of the battery.

The 26.8kWh battery is small compared to other short-range EVs, like the Mini Electric the Honda E or Mazda MX-30, all of which pack more than 30kWh. That said, it's significantly larger than the 17.6kWh of a Smart EQ Fortwo and Citroen Ami’s 5.5kWh. And because the Spring is light, its range is actually decent at a claimed 143 miles. The Mini will do 144 miles, the Smart 80 miles and the Citroen just 47 miles. The Spring's maximum DC charge speed is relatively low at 30kW, though if you’re charging at home, a standard 7.4kW wallbox will require less than five hours to fully charge the battery.

In France, the Spring starts at around €17,000, which on a direct exchange would be around £14,500 at current rates. We predicted that Dacia would add a couple of thousand to that, at least, because that's what normally happens when a car is converted to left-hand drive for the UK. So, fair play to Dacia for keeping the price below £15,000. It's quite remarkable, really. For reference, the cheapest new electric car with five doors currently (again, not including the Citroen Ami) is the £27,000 MG4.

Dacia has recently updated its Sandero, Sandero Stepway, Duster and Jogger with a new corporate look so the Spring EV is its most significant release. Beyond that we’re expecting a trio of new models going beyond the existing Duster, including a large SUV possibly based on the Bigster Concept unveiled in 2021.

There’s nothing quite like the Dacia Spring in the pipeline from other manufacturers at the moment, so it faces more conventional rivals already on sale. These would include short-range, relatively inexpensive EVs like the MG4, the Renault Zoe, the Nissan Leaf, the Honda e, the Mazda MX-30, and perhaps even cars as big as the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e. But none of the above are anything like as cheap, while only a few of them have significantly greater one-shot driving range than the Dacia’s claimed 143 miles.