Tuesday 12th March

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? 

---

• New Dacia Spring revealed ahead of UK launch
• ‘Fun, iconic’ new Renault 5 E-Tech unveiled

[sugerbear]

Nice

[CraigyMc]

0-60 in 19s will make uphill slip roads a bit more stressful than they probably need to be.

[MikeM6]

Great, a good direction for EVs to go in, and whilst barely getting 100 miles per charge does limit it's usefulness, it's a good starting point to improve on.

Glad the ADAS button is available, which means there is no reason why all cars shouldn't have it.

[Djtemeka]

This will be fine for old people who only drive to the shops etc. Trundling at 20 everywhere is perfect for them and the low price means that they may actually buy it.

[The Rotrex Kid]

Well done Renault, I really thought they were going to end up £20k+

Dacia putting the knife into renault in the UK again. These will outsell the Renault 5 2:1 I’d say.

[Bobtherallyfan]

That more Chinese tat and still with a poor NCAP safety rating no doubt.

[mooseracer]

"As a reminder, the Spring is rated at up to 137 miles on the WLTP mixed cycle (presumably for the lower-powered car)"

On the Dacia website that 137 figure is for the higher powered version.

[Fast and Spurious]

Bobtherallyfan said:

That more Chinese tat and still with a poor NCAP safety rating no doubt.

Yes, don't buy it, you'll be dead within minutes!

[distinctivedesign]

As I posted on the other thread, more range than the outgoing MINI, more space, and half the price. The MySafety button is a brilliant idea - let’s hope others adopt it. Other manufacturers should take note - fast. I’ve gone with the blue, but all the colours (apart from white) are good.

[Numeric]

Djtemeka said:

This will be fine for old people who only drive to the shops etc. Trundling at 20 everywhere is perfect for them and the low price means that they may actually buy it.

And you've described my mother.

Her ICE cars have problems caused by lack of distance (battery probs etc) but best of all the low price hopefully means a low monthly as her low mileage is minimal. PCP would be a great option for her as she would get a regular new car and won't break into her savings which she hates doing - but this will be very dependent on residuals which will be interesting to see how they are set.

[cerb4.5lee]

CraigyMc said:

0-60 in 19s will make uphill slip roads a bit more stressful than they probably need to be.

It does just show how far PistonHeads has moved away from its original tagline of "Speed Matters" doesn't it?

In saying that, I do think that this will sell pretty well as a cheap(for a new car anyway) runaround though.

[Fast and Spurious]

These things should rightly sell like hotcakes. And will.
137 mile range is good enough.

[Equus]

Fast and Spurious said:

137 mile range is good enough.

I don't think 45bhp is, however, in this day and age. Even something like a Toyota Aygo is 69bhp.

[Fast and Spurious]

Get the 65bhp one, that is enough.

[James_N]

Numeric said:

And you've described my mother.

Her ICE cars have problems caused by lack of distance (battery probs etc) but best of all the low price hopefully means a low monthly as her low mileage is minimal. PCP would be a great option for her as she would get a regular new car and won't break into her savings which she hates doing - but this will be very dependent on residuals which will be interesting to see how they are set.

I know very little about PCP. Now we know the price of the car, when do you think PCP pricing will be announced . Doss this happen when the car is actually released (so do we have to wait until summer)

Or do we preorder now and see what deals are about when contacted by Dacia? Be good to have some idea of the cost.

[andy43]

Fast and Spurious said:

These things should rightly sell like hotcakes. And will.
137 mile range is good enough.

Definitely a good deal. We do fine with 90 miles of winter range 99% of the time - for what these are built for it’s a non-issue and that initial EV acceleration will more than mask the 45 hp around town.
I’d think the R5 buyer will be more Mini/Fiat 500/style orientated so I’m not sure this’ll nick sales from Renault. This is more Hyundai i10 - basic bargain priced transport.
According to the press people want cheap EVs - 15 grand is certainly cheap.

[Andy83n]

Its probably the perfect car for 90% of all journeys.

0-60 is less important than 0-20 or 0-30 and looks a more viable option than a Citroen Ami.

[Mr E]

My old leaf had a 24Kwh battery. Range was ~80 miles I normal use.

[PositronicRay]

I currently don't need a runabout, but if I did I'd have to give it some serious thought.

[Mammasaid]

James_N said:

I know very little about PCP. Now we know the price of the car, when do you think PCP pricing will be announced . Doss this happen when the car is actually released (so do we have to wait until summer)

Or do we preorder now and see what deals are about when contacted by Dacia? Be good to have some idea of the cost.

https://preorder.dacia.co.uk/spring

Dacia said:

What are your finance offers?

You’re a pioneer! You’ve pre-ordered your All-New Dacia Spring before any vehicles are built and our finance offers aren’t ready yet. We’ve given you the manufacturer’s recommended retail price to give you an idea of the cost of the vehicle, and we’ll continue to work on our finance offers, which will be available when your retailer gets in touch with you. If the finance package (or anything else!) isn’t right for you, we’ll simply refund you your deposit – it’s as straight forward as that.