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Dacia Spring review
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“Dacia’s entry-level electric car is everything you want: low cost, low weight, low impact, yet high fun”
Good stuff
Honest, endearing, amusing. Exhibits typical Gallic flair and comes across as a latter day Citroen 2CV
Bad stuff
Not everyone will find the roll-heavy handling amusing. Or the tinny bodywork and basic trim
What is it?
A latter day Citroen 2CV. That’s what it puts us in mind of. A simple, amusing, unsophisticated but loveable cheap car. Exactly the right car to give the electric era a kick up the wotsits. Because electric cars are heavy, aren’t they? Every single one seems to be over two tonnes, with the laziest SUVs now approaching three.
The Dacia Spring weighs less than a tonne. Genuinely. The words electric car and virtuous circle are usually mutually exclusive. Not here. The battery is just 26.8kWh and weighs 188kg. Because it’s not massive, Dacia can fit smaller brakes, axles, motors and so on and still get the speed and efficiency it wants. All in it weighs 970kg.
What speed and efficiency are we talking?
The promise is over 5.0mi/kWh, and 0-62mph in a blistering 13.7 seconds. And that’s the fast one. More anon, but first a quick caveat. The car we’ve driven here is the current Europe-only Spring. It’s not going on sale in the UK until the facelifted version arrives in the middle of next year. That’ll weigh 5kg more because it has more ornate bodywork. We’ll cope.
Has it been a success in Europe?
More like a platinum hit. Dacia has taken 120,000 orders since it went on sale just two years ago. It’s currently Europe’s third best selling electric car behind the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. In France it costs less than £15,000, making it the cheapest electric car there is (provided you discount the Citroen Ami quadricycle). That’ll creep up when it comes to the UK, but the promise is this will remain a sub-£20k EV. Gives the new-arriving Chinese brands some food for thought.
It's not based on the same underpinnings as the Sandero – that’s a markedly bigger car, around 300mm longer than this. The Spring is emphatically an A-segment city car, built on the Renault-Nissan Alliance’s CMF-A platform. You won’t have heard much about that before because it’s mainly been used for Asian market cars.
What’s the Spring’s attraction?
It’s low cost obviously, with Dacia reporting that for 93 per cent of buyers, this is their first EV. For 72 per cent, it’s their first Dacia. More than that, this is a very carefully targeted car. Dacia’s research showed that most people don’t drive more than 20 miles per day, at an average speed of 16mph, so the Spring, having a range of 140 miles, was designed to only need charging once a week. Which 75 per cent people do at home anyway. Dacia claims that 90 per cent buy it as their second car, and almost immediately it becomes the main car.
Why’s that?
We suspect it’s because it’s an old-fashioned hoot to drive. It rolls, it scrabbles, it doesn’t have much grip, it lollops along and oozes character.
How much power does it have?
Here’s where the Deux Chevaux comparison really comes good. When it arrives in the UK, we will only take the more potent of the two versions. That has 65bhp. The entry-version has 45bhp. That one takes 19.1s to reach 62mph.
Dacia points out that the 0-31mph sprint is probably more relevant to a car aimed firmly at urban use. There, the figures are 3.9s and 5.8s. We’ve only driven the 65bhp version so far. That only struggles when confronting multi-laners. We suspect the 45bhp might feel outgunned on an A-road. Top speed for both is 78mph.
How’s the cabin?
Basic but cheery, much like any other Dacia. You forgive the plastic steering wheel, dated buttons and lack of luxury features because you know you’re getting a base car. But it’s still got five doors and a 290-litre boot.
Is it more environmentally friendly than a petrol city car?
Did you know EuroNCAP crash testing had an environmental equivalent, GreenNCAP? Well, you do now. The Dacia Spring was its best performing car of last year. Dacia claims the Spring’s well-to-wheel emissions are a third those of a B-segment ICE car.
What's the verdict?
“We can see the Spring having broad appeal: learners, urban commuters, the eco-minded, those not wanting their new car to baffle them”....
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