Dacia Spring | PH Fleet

Time to bid farewell to the Dacia EV - is it a fond goodbye?

By Tony Middlehurst / Monday, 13 October 2025 / Loading comments

Over the years my partner and I have run a lot of conventional cars, some less conventional than others, most older than the norm. The arrival of a spangly new Dacia Spring long-termer on our grungey old drive generated a sense of curiosity rather than one of excited anticipation. We had no experience of electric vehicles, but nor did we have any preconceived hatred of them.

After seven months and nearly 6,000 miles of tough country usage, it’s fair to say that the Dacia has turned us into EV believers. Even with only 64hp to play with in our top spec Extreme model, the fun factor of jump in, switch on, point and squirt EV motoring never dwindled. We tried to tune our one by removing the overmat on the driver’s side in case any throttle travel was being lost, but really there was no need. Instant response meant that exiting side roads and even A-road overtakes became risk-free procedures.

We’ve effectively been using our Spring as a small van, folding the back seats down more or less immediately and throwing a cover over the area to protect the seat backs from attack by shopping, sawn logs and sundry bits of equestrian tackle. It took on that role without complaint.

Another very different role in which we didn’t expect it to excel was off-roading. We live out in the sticks in Wales with a lot of common land to explore. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between numbered highways and farm tracks around here, such is the lack of road maintenance, but when we have found ourselves in the wilds the Spring’s excellent ground clearance and easily controllable torque have carried us up many a stony track. Although we didn’t come up against any snow during our time with the car, there’s no reason to suppose it wouldn’t handle that well too.

Our Spring has been returning between four and five miles per kilowatt/hour through the year, and that’s without sparing the rod. The Spring doesn’t have clever thermal management systems to optimise its performance, but the predicted mileage from a full battery deviated very little between the time of its delivery in winter and its departure in autumn. Its official WLTP driving range figure is 140 miles. Our car’s own indicated estimates for the range of its 27kWh battery began at 128 miles in February, went up to 130 miles after a month or so, and remained at that point ever since. As a rough guide, we’ve found 10 claimed miles to be equivalent to about eight real ones.

Some PHers have complained about the presence of the Spring on this website, but we found that it fitted very nicely into our rural life. The doors shut with a tinny clang, and you wouldn’t want to lean on any body panel too hard, but it’s really wormed its way into our hearts. It’s been so easy to run. At no point in its 6,000 miles have we charged the Spring from any source other than an extension cable connected to a domestic three-pin plug.

Nothing has gone wrong with the car, or felt like it was going to. The tyre pressure monitor has been overly sensitive, prompting redundant checks, reinflations and resets, but that’s been more of an annoyance than a fault. The one change that could and maybe should have been made at the design stage would have been a steering column stalk in place of the clumsy drive selector that sits atop a plinth between the seats, needlessly taking up space.

That’s pretty much it on the debit side, though. As a second car for the 25 miles’ worth of daily local buzzing about that most UK motorists apparently do most of the time, it seems almost mad not to have a Spring, especially when you take into account the prices that ex-demo cars are going for. The list price for a 65 Extreme is the same £16,995 today as it was in early 2025. That will get you a standard car in Safari Beige, the blue paint of our loaner apparently not being available for the Spring any more. That sandy colour does give it a cute off-roady vibe, though. Alternatively, you can go for Brick Red but that takes the price up to £17,645. Another £290 on top of that will get you a ‘frunk’, a centre armrest and a compartmentalised boot storage box.

If that’s all starting to seem expensive for a titchy and some would say cosmetically challenged car, the fact is that you don’t need to pay £18k, £17k, or anywhere in that region. We’ve just seen a September-registered Spring 65 Expression with nine miles on it for just £10,395, or £242 a month on HP. As noted in an earlier report, we’d actually pick the infotainment-free Expression over the Extreme in order to retain the simplicity that (for us at least) is such a big part of the car’s appeal. For your £10,395 you will receive effectively all of the manufacturer’s warranty, which in the case of the Spring is three years or 60,000 miles, with eight years/75,000 miles of coverage for the battery guaranteeing a minimum charge capacity of 75 per cent when either of those points is reached.

On that topic, there’s growing evidence to suggest that the big fear about EVs – battery endurance – might not be the elephant in the room we’ve all been fearing. Most EVs in the UK at least still seem to be in fine fettle at that point. Many appear to have breezed effortlessly past the 200,000-mile mark on their original battery packs. Unkept promises about ultra-low EV servicing and charging costs have tainted the EV revolution somewhat, but being able to forget about battery life is a big plus that should surely have a positive impact on used EV values. How much are those used Taycans again? Still under £30k, ye say? Hmm.

Now, for an alternative and perhaps more considered view on the Spring, let me hand you over to my partner Krys: “Entering into the Marmite world of EV driving in the UK has been an adventure. Media, friends’ anecdotes, and manufacturer ads combined with a lack of unbiased info about UK charge points can present a confusing picture, so entering into a 100 per cent EV scenario while living in a genuinely remote area was expected to be a huge challenge.

“After some chuckling and swearing about feeding an extension cable up to the drive and sussing which button or screen did what, we sat down and realised that we've had a blast with this car. Rear seating is tight – that’s official feedback from a paraglider we found hitchhiking home – but it’s roomy and comfortable up front. Once I’d become familiar with where everything was and what it did, it became the easiest, most fun, most economical buzzabout whizzmobile I've been in. It's done all I've asked of it with gusto, on varied terrain and in all conditions bar snow. It charges pretty quickly and is deliciously zippy to manoeuvre and park. Tony never got on with the info system tech but that’s probably because he’s ancient. I found it comprehensive and useful and the graphics clear.

“Worst feature was the low mileage range. Best features were not having to visit petrol stations and the unexpected power. I’d happily own one if it had a more generous range.”

Car: 2025 Dacia Spring Extreme Electric 65
Price as tested: £16,995
Run by: Tony M
On fleet since: February 2025