The new Dacia Spring is faster and better equipped, but it’s also cheaper than before

This is the new Dacia Spring. Yes, it does look exactly the same as the old Dacia Spring, but there are some significant changes under the skin. It has a more powerful motor, updated suspension to remedy the wayward handling and there’s some fresh new tech on board.

Despite these improvements, Dacia has also slashed the Spring’s starting price. It launched the Dacia Electric Car Grant, most likely in response to the Government’s EV grant, to give you £3,750 off the new Spring for a limited time.

New Dacia Spring price and specs – it’s insanely cheap

The updated Dacia Spring starts from £15,990, which is around £1,000 more than the outgoing version. However, Dacia is also offering a £3,750 discount on this car which brings the price down to £12,240.

This is almost certainly in response to the government electric car grant, which can get you up to £3,750 off qualifying EVs. The Spring isn’t currently eligible for this, so Dacia is offering its own discount.

It’s not just cheap by EV standards, it makes the Spring the cheapest new car you can buy in the UK right now. As standard you get a 70hp electric motor, air conditioning, rear parking sensors and LED daytime running lights.

For just £1,000 more you can get the 100hp version. This model is 2.7 seconds quicker from 0-60mph, completing the sprint in 9.6 seconds. You also get a 10.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in place of the phone mount in the basic car, as well as a reversing camera.

Dacia Spring updates: suspension

The Dacia Spring is fine around town, but as soon as you venture outside of the urban jungle it sort of falls apart. Not literally, but head into a corner carrying any sort of speed and there is an alarming amount of bodyroll, and the cheap eco tyres don’t have much grip either. It’s pretty unnerving.

To make it feel a bit less roly-poly, Dacia has now fitted an anti-roll bar for the. This is pretty standard on more expensive EVs, and it stiffens up the chassis to combat lean in the bends.

The electric power steering settings have also been tweaked to make it more responsive, and the brakes are more powerful as well.

Finally, there’s a new battery pack which is mounted more centrally in the car. That improves the weight distribution and just helps the car feel more balanced. We’ll get behind the wheel of the updated Spring soon to see how effective these changes are.

Dacia Spring updates: Motors and battery

In addition to the improved suspension, the Spring has also been given some more power. The 45hp and 65hp motor options have been ditched, and in their place you have 70hp and 100hp versions.

The latter should be much better for motorway driving, an area where the current car feels a bit out of its depth. Go for the 100hp version and it’ll go from 50 to 75mph in 6.9 seconds, whereas that would take a whopping 14.0 seconds in the old 65hp model. Much better for zipping out of road works or overtaking on faster-moving roads.

These new motors work in conjunction with a new 24kWh battery, and despite the added power the Spring can still do 140 miles on a charge. That might not seem overly impressive compared to other, more expensive EVs, but it should be plenty for most people’s daily commutes.

Finally, there’s the matter of charging. The old Spring could only charge at 30kW on a DC fast charger, which meant topping up from 20-80% took a leisurely 45 minutes. The top-spec version of the new model gets 40kW fast charging, which drops this to 29 minutes.

That’s still not that fast by modern standards, but keep in mind that the Spring is unlikely to be used on long journeys where you’ll need to use public fast chargers regularly. It’s better-suited to daily commuting with a charger at home.

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