► Dacia’s new, electric Spring city car
► Britain’s cheapest EV on sale now
► Priced from £14,995, or £169 a month
Thought electric cars were expensive? Think again, as the new 2024 Dacia Spring goes on UK sale priced from £14,995, with tempting finance deals from as little as £169 a month. With pricing like this, the Spring goes straight to the top of our cheapest electric car rankings.
The finance deals were announced in early June 2024 and the headline starter price of £169 a month is for a PCP lease deal over a four-year period and comes with a £2325 deposit. The interest rate for borrowing stands at 3.9% APR and there’s assumed mileage cap of 6000 a year. Fancy buying the car outright at the end of the PCP? That’ll cost you £6033.
That’s the entry price of the newly refreshed Dacia Spring – a heavy update to the back-to-basics EV that’s been doing the rounds on the Continent for some years in left-hand drive form. It made its first public debut at the 2024 Geneva motor show and will wend its way to UK dealerships in October 2024.
The baby EV has had a proper design and interior rethink, introducing some extra technology and features over the pre-facelift model.
We already rate the Spring, having driven the pre-facelift model on UK roads and on a big adventure to the Transfagarasan highway in its home country of Romania. Now, as it launches in right-hand drive, UK buyers are officially able to order one – and UK prices have been confirmed.
It looks cute!
As it should – it’s only a dinky thing. The new 2024 Spring features Dacia’s latest design language, with lots of blocky and boxy motifs moulded onto the car’s front and rear ends. You have to remember that this is a heavy update, not a whole new generation, so the basic car’s structure remains the same as before.
Bolder details are seen everywhere, with chunky wheelarches and funky wheel designs. The brand’s name is emblazoned across the rear and lights that ape the design of the new Duster can be seen front and rear.
The version pictured also features a neat vinyl motif on the front and rear bumper of a map of city streets, implying that the Spring is much more at home in the urban jungle than the real one. In fact, that (optional) map graphic is deliberate.
‘We’re keeping the same trim levels as the rest of the Dacia range [i.e. Essential, Expression and Extreme],’ Dacia design director, David Durand tells CAR magazine. ‘With the Extreme version, we thought it would be best not to put topography lines in the details of this car [unlike Duster or Jogger Extreme models] because this car will never go off road! It wouldn’t be coherent.
‘But with these stickers front and rear, the idea was also to protect the bumpers front and rear – it’s much easier to change than changing a full bumper – and we’ll propose some future collections,’ adds Durand.
‘It’s also useful for car sharers, for example, giving them the space to put their logo.’
What about the interior of the Dacia Spring?
Arguably the Spring’s biggest improvement over the pre-update model is the city car’s cabin. Naturally, the Spring has been designed to be a cheap car – as cheap as it can be – but the original car’s interior materials and layout felt one step away from sitting inside a wheelie bin.
Now, though, the Spring takes a lot of design and material inspiration from the new Duster, including a very blocky dashboard featuring Dacia’s design motifs in various places. White as well as black plastic panels help to lift the interior ambience and higher-up trims can be customised with matte orange or khaki green vent surrounds.
Physical climate controls feature, as does (a small amount of) steering height adjustment – the pre-facelift car didn’t have an inch of movement, making it hard to get comfortable.
Every Spring benefits from a seven-inch digital instrument display as standard (above). As for infotainment, Dacia says low-end Essential and Expression models have a phone clip for you to use, while higher Extreme trim features a customisable 10-inch infotainment display also seen on the new Duster.
Go for that and you’ll also benefit from wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, making it a cinch to connect your phone.
Given the facelift came about in order for the Spring to meet Europe’s new General Safety Regulation 2 standards, every Spring model also benefits from a raft of safety technologies as standard, with even basic Essential models coming with a speed limiter and cruise control, rear parking sensors, AEB, traffic sign recognition, lane-keep assist and emergency call functions (among other bits).
The Spring also benefits from Dacia’s new YouClip accessories system that was first launched with the new Duster, with the Spring featuring three YouClip hook points in the interior. Launch accessories include a three-in-one cupholder (it’s called a ‘three-in-one’ as it includes two more YouClip hooks on the accessory itself), a bag, a hook, a battery-operated light and a smartphone holder. You can also spec a plastic tray to cover the mechanical parts under the bonnet, giving you a small frunk area.
What Spring performance specs can you tell me?
This is the part where not much has changed from before. Every Spring benefits from a 28.6kWh battery pack that sits below the rear seats and a single e-motor driving the front wheels. The Spring is also still a light car, with its heaviest version clocking in at 984kg – just six kilograms more than the pre-facelift model.
Two power variants will be available: 44bhp (known as the 45) and 64bhp (known as the 65, both named after their metric horsepower output). Both are capable of a 137-mile e-range, while the latter will sprint to 62mph in a lethargic-but-actually-fine-in-city-driving 14 seconds.
The Spring can charge at 7kW AC or up to 30kW via a DC charger. Dacia says that means a 20-100 per cent charge in 11 hours on a domestic socket, four hours on a 7kW wallbox or 45 mins from 20-80 per cent via a DC charger. Dacia says you can charge its Spring up at home using smart off-peak tariffs for less than £2!
On top of that, the Spring can be had with vehicle-to-load functionality – similar to what Hyundai and Kia provide as an option. V2L is only available on Extreme trim, and works via an adapter plugged into the car’s charge port, allowing you to power devices.
How much does a Dacia Spring cost?
You can have a Dacia Spring from £14,995 in the UK, making it the cheapest electric car on the market here right now. The full price list looks like this:
- Expression 45 £14,995
- Expression 65 £15,995
- Extreme 65 £16,995
Deliveries begin to arrive in October 2024.