JOYS OF SPRING (some text hidden) SECTIONED_new_daciaspring_2024_preview

By Jonathan Crouch

Dacia's Spring resets the value proposition for EV buyers on a budget. Jonathan Crouch reports

Ten Second Reviewword count: 54

Dacia shakes up the affordable end of the EV market with this car, the Spring. The driving range is modest, but then so also is the price. This Romanian contender is fun to look at - and to drive. Here at last is an EV small hatch more comparably priced to a combustion model.

Backgroundword count: 157

Electric cars are too expensive. That's the bottom line. Despite continued industry promises, we're still waiting for the required wave of small, affordable EVs priced more comparably with fossil-fuelled runabouts. If any car maker was going to provide such a thing, you'd hope it might be Dacia, Renault's Romanian budget brand, who shook up the market a decade ago by offering UK folk a new family hatchback (the Sandero) for under £6,000. In fact, they already have, launching Europe's cheapest electric car, the Spring, back in 2021. Early versions of that model never appeared here, but Dacia is taking the opportunity provided by this model line's facelift to introduce it for the British market. The Spring is assembled in China as part of a joint venture between the Nissen Renault Alliance and the DongFeng Motor Group. And over 120,000 have been sold across Europe so far. So what might be its prospects here? Let's take a look.

Engines and Tech Specword count: 188

Our market focuses on the gutsier version of the Spring with a 65hp electric motor; an entry-level 45hp version's also available, but you'd have to be really urban-bound to choose that because it takes over 19 seconds to get to 62mph, around 5 seconds more than the 65 version. Both variants come with the same small battery pack with just 26.8kWh of usable capacity available, a modest figure that means just 137 miles of range can be had. But you won't be choosing a Spring for long journeys - or for performance; the 64bhp variant makes 62mph in just under 14s, though because the first 30mph is dispatched so quickly, it feels faster than that, helped by a light kerb weight of just 984kg. The tight turning circle, super-light steering and the small exterior size make the Spring a great city car. Predictably, it's less comfortable on the motorway, where it can get blown about by HGVs and going above 70mph takes quite a bit of driver determination. Best to keep this Dacia in its comfort zone, zipping about the suburbs, where it's really quite a fun companion.

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