I bought a Dacia Spring…

[Toaster Pilot]

Since my Citroen Ami died and was rejected, I’ve had a small electric car shaped hole in my fleet.



Enter my 2025 Dacia Spring 65 Extreme…. Possibly the least extreme vehicle ever.

About 150 miles in and liking it so far, but time will tell whether I’ve made a grave error.

[Toaster Pilot]

There’s a lot of talk online about these - mostly on the subject of it being dangerously slow. People see the 19.1s 0-60 time of the 45 model and that’s all they can talk about.

The 65 is much more like an equivalent small ICE but with instant torque and less noise.

[Toaster Pilot]

Tophatron said:

I do like these and have done since I first saw a Renault Kwid in India several years ago (price new in India was around £3k for a petrol version).

However I can't help but think the Leapmotor T03 is an all round better proposition as a cheap EV (the monthlies are around the same as the Spring) - if only the T03 didn't look so cheap and awful.

Certainly will be interesting to see how you get on with the Spring.

Monthlies might be similar but the cash price is £3k more than I paid for this - and I’d rather st in my hands and clap than deal with Stellantis again tbh.

[Toaster Pilot]

I’ll likely be putting it to a pretty inappropriate test this weekend - I need to collect two bulky things 210 miles away.

[Toaster Pilot]

Tbh I’ve no idea why anyone would buy the 45, especially when you can buy a pre reg 65 for less than it costs.

The lack of CCS alone being a pretty good reason to avoid it.

Edited by Toaster Pilot on Friday 7th March 21:05

[Toaster Pilot]

TheDeuce said:

I think it probably only exists for the sake of having cheaper version, but it's not as good value as the 65 overall. I think they designed the car as the 65 and then took things away!

Does it really not have CCS!? That's weird - it says it can charge upto 30kwh, which I would assume required CCS, the charge speed being limited by the battery capacity.

45 definitely doesn’t have CCS, 7kW AC only. The spec on the Dacia website is wrong.

[Toaster Pilot]

Ground clearance is alright

[Toaster Pilot]

andburg said:

biggest problem i have with one of these is the weak used EV market

£14k for a spring or £14k for an early used MG4 with 4 years warranty remaining, other than needing something very small it'd be a tough sell for me.

Used cars have always been cheaper than new ones, people were saying this about the Sandero when Dacia launched in the UK.

[Toaster Pilot]

It’s not a theory

[Toaster Pilot]

Lil_Red_GTO said:

it feels like you are in some parallel universe version of the 1990s where cars were all electric instead of ICE.

This is a fantastic description of it tbh (even the Extreme where all that manual stuff is electric)

The continual discounting on new models is the thing that’ll hurt residuals the hardest imo, seems it’s Renault’s ZEV mandate punching bag

[Toaster Pilot]

Safer cars are available. A very small number of the “omg NCAP!!!!” people were ever going to buy one anyway though.

[Toaster Pilot]

Benny Saltstein said:

So just how good/bad are these? I see that pre-reg/demos can now be had for £11k which is quite appealing for a 2nd EV in the household.

I really like it so far - it’s small and cheaply made but as long as you can get over those things it’s an absolute bargain.

[Toaster Pilot]

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

As I have seen these for sale for £10,495 would I be right in thinking these have hardly been a sales success?

https://www.vertumotors.com/used-car/3773605/dacia...

The 45 needs to be even cheaper than that to actually sell imo, I don’t understand why anyone would buy it. Even slower and no CCS.

It does appear they’re registering tons of them though, I can only assume they’re firmly the Renault Group’s ZEV mandate punching bag.

[Toaster Pilot]

The tyres do get quite a bad rep among reviewers and owners alike tbh. I haven’t found them that bad yet, I’m sure if you drive like a you’ll find out quite quickly.

People do like to be dramatic when talking about a car they’ve no intention of buying though.