Dacia Spring confirmed as £15k EV in UK

Say hello to Britain's cheapest new electric car - the Spring can be pre-ordered now with a £99 deposit

Dacia has announced that its freshly updated Spring will indeed be Britain’s cheapest new EV, with prices set to start from £14,995. That makes it one of the top 10 most affordable cars for sale today, electric or otherwise. Those bemoaning the availability of fairly inexpensive, simple, unpretentious small cars, step right up.

As is Dacia tradition, however, that alluringly low entry price is for the model that very few people will buy. In this case, that’s because the £15k Spring is the lower-powered Expression trim, and lower powered in this case means… 45hp. Which is gardening tool levels of power. The more potent (all things being relative) and likely more popular Spring has 65hp; that output is available in both £16k Expression and £17k Extreme spec.

Both the Spring Expressions get electric front windows, rear parking sensors, ‘Media Control system with USB port’, a seven-inch digital dash and air con. Extreme adds copper accents, a 10-inch central screen with smartphone mirroring, electric mirrors (and rear windows) plus bi-directional charging, so your hairdryer could run off it. The Spring even gets a host of active safety tech to ensure that it meets European Global Safety Regular 2 standards. Seemingly aware of how irritating they can be, Dacia has introduced a ‘clever’ - their words, not ours - button called ‘MySafety’, which allows for ‘rapid access to preferred and personalised ADAS settings’. Good idea.

As a reminder, the Spring is rated at up to 137 miles on the WLTP mixed cycle (presumably for the lower-powered car) or 186 on the urban test. Its 26.8kWh battery can be juiced from 20 to 80 per cent in four hours on a standard 7kW wallbox.

Luke Broad, Dacia’s UK Brand Director, said: “Spring has played a key part in widespread adoption of EVs across Europe and, with a price that is even lower than speculated, we’re confident it will continue the success story in the UK. We have listened to the concerns of UK drivers regarding accessing EVs, ensuring it not only has an unprecedented price but affordability that doesn’t come at the expense of durability, equipment or usability. Quite simply, there’s no other new EV currently on sale that offers so much for so little.”

Pre-orders are open now, with the cars expected in October. Dacia says that those who spring into action soon (sorry) will benefit from locking in that £15k price - don’t say you weren’t warned if it goes up - as well as £250 towards ‘accessories, public charging, or a contribution for a home charger through Mobilize Power Solutions’. Might this be your next urban runaround?