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The Dacia Spring is the UK’s most affordable new electric car; top of the range Extreme trim provides more equipment than you might expect, but there are also some compromises.
The Dacia Spring was first launched in Europe in 2021 and was the third best-selling electric car for retail customers in 2022 and 2023. In total, more than 140,000 Dacia Springs have been registered worldwide since its launch.
The Dacia Spring is now available in the UK from £14,995, making it the most affordable new electric car.
The Dacia Spring has a 26.8 kWh battery which is mated to a 45 hp or 65 hp electric motor driving the front wheels. It weighs only 984 kg in the top-level Extreme trim, making it the only full-electric car in Europe under one tonne.
Apart from the small battery, a key reason for the car’s lightness is that it’s small, and very narrow; the driver and front passenger are seated intimately close together.
The Spring has a boot size of 308 litres, or 1,004 litres with the rear seats folded down. There’s a compartment under the boot floor, which won’t fit a charging cable because it’s full of foam packaging for items such as the tyre repair kit; it would make much more sense to ditch this packaging. Buyers can opt for additional space under the front bonnet, providing an extra 35 litres of storage (not a feature on our test car).
Although the boot is perhaps larger than expected, legroom for rear seat passengers is extremely tight. You’re left thinking that if Dacia had no budget to fit a sliding rear seat, they should have given priority to more rear legroom over boot space.
There’s a generous storage space in front of the gear selector, two decent-sized door pockets, and a storage area in front of the passenger above the glove compartment.
If you need mirrors in the sun visors, you’ll need to look elsewhere, as the Spring doesn’t have any – despite this being a very low cost item of equipment.
Exterior styling includes graphics depicting a map of an urban area on the front and rear bumpers.
The first surprise with the Dacia Spring is that you have to start it by turning a key in the ignition, as per an old petrol car. The next surprise is that there’s an old-fashioned handbrake that needs releasing. And then there’s the complete lack of steering wheel reach adjustment, and very limited driver’s seat adjustment, all of which means that many people will find it a challenge to get a comfortable driving position.
A gear selector sits on the floor on top of a box between the two front seats. Most other EVs have ditched such a location for a gear selector a long time ago and moved this to a position on the dashboard to make more storage space between the seats. You pull the gear selector down for Drive (or for B, providing an increased level of regenerative braking), and push it up for Reverse. There’s no ‘Park’ setting, so you also need to put it into Neutral when you stop. Successfully selecting any gear is a challenge – you move the gear selector and often nothing happens.
We’ve already established that the Dacia Spring is small and light. As most of the EVs that we review are SUVs approaching two tonnes or more, this translates to a refreshing, agile driving experience for an EV. The Spring’s 0-62 mph acceleration time of 13.7 seconds sounds painfully slow, but acceleration from standstill is actually reasonably responsive. This can mean some wheelspin from the front-wheel drive chassis.
The Spring’s ride quality is comfortable on most roads, no doubt helped by its light weight and small wheels, but it struggles to deal with large obstacles such as speed bumps. The relatively narrow width of the car, its reasonably high ride height, and the very narrow tyres means that roadholding and handling are not the Spring’s specialities. Although the Spring can cope with motorway speeds, the steering wanders.
The Spring’s dashboard features a 10-inch touchscreen which has sensible shortcuts on the right-hand side of Home, Media, Phone, Apps and Car. It includes sat nav, but the sat nav screen didn’t seem to display a map. So we just used Apple CarPlay for sat nav, which was fine. You even get two USB-C sockets.
There are also physical controls for heating and ventilation including dials for the fan speed and temperature, which work perfectly well (although the Spring doesn’t give you a read-out of cabin temperature), and buttons for window demist etc. Above the climate controls is a row of switches including for the electric windows and a button for Eco mode.
There are no media volume controls evident, these are hidden behind the right-hand side of the steering wheel, in typical Renault fashion. There are also no heated seats or steering wheel.
The Spring has a lane departure warning system, which you can switch off via the touchscreen.
The Spring’s 26.8 kWh battery delivers a WLTP combined electric driving range of 140 miles for all versions. This is obviously much less than the 300 or 400 mile-plus ranges of increasing numbers of new EVs, but Dacia says that data collected via the Spring’s on-board connected systems shows that the average daily trip made by Spring drivers is just 23 miles, at an average speed of only 23 mph. The real-world range was averaging 125 miles during our week with the car (in winter).
One very impressive feature of the Spring is its efficiency of 4.4-4.6 miles per kWh, which shows that cars that are light are also efficient.
Dacia says that in 75% of cases, Spring EVs are recharged at home, which is a relief, because if you need to use public charging you’ll be waiting a long time. The Spring only has a maximum DC charging rate of 30 kW (and DC charging is only a feature of the Electric 65 versions) which means that a charge of the small 26.8 kWh battery from 20% to 80% takes 45 minutes.
Most new EVs have a rapid charging rate of at least 100 kW, with some having rates of over 300 kW. So a 30 kW DC charge speed is possibly the most disappointing aspect of the Spring – you would imagine that 50 kW should be the absolute minimum that it’s worth providing.
The Spring is equipped with a 7 kW AC charger that can charge the battery from 20% to 100% on a domestic outlet in less than 11 hours, or in just four hours on a 7 kW wall box.
The Spring has a charging socket at the front of the car, and to open it you need to pull a lever that’s located under the bottom right-hand side of the dashboard, right next to the lever for the bonnet – in the dark it’s easy to open the bonnet in error. There’s also no light in the charging socket.
Surprisingly, bearing in mind the slow DC charging rate and the small battery, the Spring features a bi-directional V2L (vehicle-to-load) adapter that can be used as an energy source to power electrical devices. A component that plugs into the car’s charging connector acts as a traditional 220V/16A socket.
The Dacia Spring Expression Electric 45 is priced at £14,995, the Expression Electric 65 costs £15,995, and the Extreme Electric 65 – as tested – is £16,995. Our test car had the option of Stonewash Blue Metallic Paint (£650), taking the price as tested to £17,645.
In Europe the Spring is available with entry-level Essential trim, but this isn’t offered in the UK. So in the UK there are two trim levels – Expression and Extreme.
Expression trim is available with the Electric 45 or 65 powertrain and standard equipment includes a 7-inch digital instrument cluster, height-adjustable 3-spoke steering wheel, media control system with USB port, speed limiter, cruise control, steering wheel-mounted controls, central locking with remote control, electric front windows, rear parking sensors, 12V socket, manual air conditioning and 15-inch wheels (only on Electric 65).
Our Extreme trim test car featured a 10-inch multimedia central display including navigation and enabling wireless use of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, electric front and rear windows, heated and electrically adjustable door mirrors, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera, tyre pressure monitor and V2L adapter for powering external appliances.
The electric Dacia Spring Cargo Van is also now available, priced from £14,995 plus VAT, making it the UK’s most affordable compact electric van.
The Dacia Spring should be celebrated for being the UK’s most affordable new electric car, with prices starting at £14,995 for the Expression Electric 45. However this model only has 45 hp, and it doesn’t even have the ability to use DC charging. The Extreme 65 trim, as tested, makes life easier, and if you look at it in relation to its price, it offers good value, with features such as a 10-inch multimedia central display and even a V2L adapter – but although you get the capability for DC charging, you can only charge at speeds up to 30 kW, which is ridiculously slow. With an energy consumption figure of 4.4-4.6 miles per kWh, the Spring is very efficient.
Compared to most other EVs the Spring has a number of shortcomings. The driving position won’t be comfortable for many people, and although the boot may be larger than expected, there’s virtually no legroom for rear seat passengers. The gear selector is frustrating to use, and of course the electric range of 140 miles means that this is an EV that will primarily be used for city driving.
The Dacia Spring is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 6 out of 10.
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