New Dacia Spring first impressions: I have high hopes, despite the higher price tag
Car changing is a big deal
This is the all-new Dacia Spring, a small electric car which shares parts with the excellent Renault Twingo. Patrik Chen, online editor for Carwow Germany, has been to see the car in person. Here are his first impressions.
The Dacia Spring is the cheapest electric car you can buy in the UK, with prices starting from less than £12,000. Now though, there’s an all-new version.
It’s got more range than the old car, more tech and a much, much nicer interior, but that has jacked the price up a bit. It’ll cost less than £18,000 when it goes on sale in the coming months.
So is the new Dacia Spring worth the extra cash? I’ve spent some time poking around the car to find out.
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Nothing about the new Spring is carried over from the outgoing car; it really is a clean-sheet bit of design. It looks much funkier than the old Spring, with a stubby little nose and high-set headlights giving it a puppy-like appearance.
It’s also 18cm wider than the old car, giving it a much stronger stance – a bit like a chunky bulldog. You can see the resemblance to the Renault Twingo at the rear, with similar tail light placement and a narrow back window.
Wheel sizes start at 15 inches and end at 16 inches. They’re also steel wheels with plastic covers, and there’s no option of alloys. How very ‘90s.
Inside, the Twingo theme continues. It looks a lot like the Renault in here, albeit with some different dashboard trim and fewer body-coloured trim pieces. Not that this is a bad thing, because it’s quite a cheerful interior for a small, cheap car. It also feels solidly-built, and you get plenty of physical switchgear which is easy to use.
The base-model car doesn’t get a central touchscreen, instead it has a mount for your phone like in the entry-level Dacia Sandero. Upgrade to the top-spec model and you get a slick 10.1-inch infotainment screen with wireless phone mirroring.
For such a small car, space in the back seats is decent. It’s a strict four-seater, but there’s plenty of shoulder room and I had just about enough kneeroom as well. I wouldn’t want to spend hours back here, but a short hop across town wouldn’t be a hardship. The Renault Twingo has more rear legroom though thanks to its clever sliding seats.
The new Spring has 337 litres of boot space, which is around 30 litres more than the outgoing car. It’s a shame that it doesn’t have the Twingo’s sliding rear seats though, because with them pushed all the way forward that car has 360 litres of boot space.
That said, you can get a front boot in the Spring for your charging cables. You can’t even open the Twingo’s bonnet, let alone store stuff under it.
Powering this car is the same 28kWh battery as you get in the Renault Twingo, but it gets slightly less range than that car. It’ll do up to 155 miles between charges, whereas the Renault manages 163 miles.
It’s 15 miles more than you get from the outgoing Spring though, and it’s over 25 miles more than a Honda Super N can manage.
Being based on the Twingo means it should be excellent to drive as well, if not quite as grin-inducing as the little Honda. The Renault is comfy and fun in the bends, but we’ll have to wait until we get behind the wheel of the Spring to see if it pulls off the same trick. Either way, it can’t be any worse than the wallowy, noisy outgoing Spring.
Even though this new Spring could end up being £6,000 more expensive than the old car, I reckon it’ll be worth it. The new car is better-built, way more practical and more high-tech than the outgoing Spring, and even if it costs £17,995 it’ll be cheaper than the Honda Super N and only a couple of grand more than the Leapmotor T03.
Then there’s the government EV grant. If this car ends up getting the full £3,750 grant, it’ll be even more of a bargain. It could end up costing around £14,000, or £16,500 if it gets the £1,500 grant.
The only thorn in the Spring’s side is its sibling: the Renault Twingo. That car will cost less than £20,000, and it’s one of our favourite small cars. The Spring will need to undercut it by quite a bit to knock the Renault off its perch.
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