Dacia Spring review

Introduction

When you’re working at the office or away from home, one of the most important questions of the day is: "What’s for lunch?" Sure, you could treat yourself to a fancy takeaway, but a supermarket meal deal contains all the key components for a lot less money. The Dacia Spring is, in effect, the automotive take on a meal deal – giving you all the essentials for a price that undercuts other electric cars.

That's right: the Spring costs thousands less to buy than a Citroën ë-C3, Hyundai Inster or Renault 5. In fact, if you stick to the lower end of the line-up, it even undercuts the Leapmotor T03.

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Sounds tempting. But to keep the price low, the ingredients that have gone into the Spring are more Iceland than Waitrose. We’re talking about a very small car with just four seats, a tiny 25kWh battery and a maximum power output of just 64bhp.

Dacia Spring video review

So, this clearly isn't an electric car you should be considering if you need to regularly traverse the length and breadth of the country. However, Dacia says its customers travel an average of 23 miles a day at an average speed of 23mph, and for those people the Spring’s range and performance should be plenty.

What’s new

- June 2024: UK orders open. One model available with 26.8kWh battery to give up to 186 urban miles; choice of Expression or Extreme trims

- July 2023: Dacia announces Spring will come to UK

- October 2020: Production-ready Spring breaks cover, with “no plans to be sold in the UK”

- March 2020: Dacia Spring shown in concept form

Overview

The Dacia Spring is flawed in many ways: it's cramped inside, unsophisticated to drive and has a very disappointing safety rating. Yes, it's cheap – but then so is a Leapmotor T03 and that's a far better all-rounder. If you are buying a Spring, go for the Electric 65 in Extreme trim.

Pros

• Cheaper than other electric cars
• Range is enough for commuting
• Respectable performance around

Cons

• Terrible safety rating
• Cramped interior
• Poor to drive

Trims available

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EXTREME

Extreme trim (available only with the Electric 65 motor) comes with electrically adjustable mirrors, electric rear windows and a 10.1in infotainment system – on top of everything you get on the Expression.

Expression

Expression gets air-conditioning, electric front windows, cruise control and rear parking sensors – but we think Extreme trim is worth the extra.

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Performance & drive

What it's like to drive, and how quiet it is

All versions of the Dacia Spring have a 25Wh (usable capacity) battery, but you can choose between a 44bhp or 64bhp electric motor.

We’ve yet to try the 44bhp version (badged Electric 45), but its official 0-62mph time of 19.1 seconds looks positively glacial. Unless you live in the centre of a city where you’re unlikely to venture above 30mph regularly, the 64bhp (Electric 65) is almost certainly worth the extra.

While the more powerful Spring's official 0-62mph time of 13.7 seconds still doesn’t sound particularly rapid (a Citroën ë-C3 is more than three seconds quicker to 62mph), acceleration is respectable up to about 40mph, before tailing off quite noticeably as you close in on the national speed limit. The Leapmotor T03 offers slightly better performance.

The T03 is also more agile. Even around town, the Spring's steering is slow and vague and there's plenty of body lean when going around roundabouts. Out of the city limits the tiny Dacia feels rather out of its depth – it’s incredibly difficult to place the car with any accuracy at higher speeds on a country road and there's noticeable nosedive under braking.

It’s a similar story when it comes to ride comfort. In urban environments, the T03 does a better job of keeping its composure when you hit a big bump or pothole. The Spring's relatively soft suspension does at least keep things reasonably calm on the motorway, though – the Leapmotor jostles you around more 70mph.

The Spring is very noisy at faster speeds – even more so than the T03 – with lots of wind and road noise making its way inside. Long trips are tiring for everyone on board, so it's perhaps a blessing in disguise than the range isn't great.

Officially, you can travel a maximum of 140 miles between charges. In our tests, the Spring managed a mostly motorway journey of 105 miles in chilly weather fairly easily, so the range is perfectly fine for the average commute. However, the T03 can travel farther (officially 165 miles) and the Citroën ë-C3 can, on paper at least, do almost 200 miles.

“I found the Spring more comfortable at faster speeds than around town. The suspension is fairly soft, but the damping is poor – hit a big bump at the car reacts quite violently.” – Doug Revolta, Head of Video

Interior

The interior layout, fit and finish

Considering the Spring's low price, Dacia’s designers deserve praise for creating an interior that looks modern and in keeping with the rest of the Dacia line-up. With attractive details such as a hexagonal steering wheel, Y-shaped air vents and, on top-spec Extreme models, flashes of bronze trim, the Spring certainly looks less drab inside than you might be fearing.

The fact that nearly all of the plastics are hard and scratchy is hardly the end of the world, although it's a pity the Dacia hasn't put a bit more effort into making the Spring's interior feel more upmarket. Unlike in the similar-priced Leapmotor T03, for example, there's no leather (or faux leather) covering on the steering wheel, and no padding for your elbow on the door armrest.

The T03 is much easier to see out of, too, thanks to its taller windows and more upright pillars. The Spring's windscreen pillars can block your view out at junctions and roundabouts – especially if you're tall. You get rear sensors on entry-level Expression trim, while Extreme trim adds front sensors and a rear-view camera.

Finding a comfortable driving position can also be tricky, because the steering wheel adjusts only for height (not reach), so longer-legged drivers might have to sit uncomfortably close to the pedals. Granted, the same criticism can be levelled at the T03, but at least that car has a more supportive driver's seat and a more spacious pedal area.

On a more positive note, there are proper physical controls for adjusting the air-conditioning in the Spring. To tweak to interior temperature in the T03 you have to slide your finger along a tiny bar on the touchscreen infotainment system, something that's fiddly to do when you're parked up – let alone when you're driving.

And while we're on the subject of the infotainment touchscreen, you only get one of these in the Spring is you go for Extreme trim. It's a good one, though – it measures 10.1in and has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You can't have smartphone mirroring on the T03.

The touchscreen is also mounted high up on the dashboard so it’s easy to see, the layout is pretty intuitive and the main icons are big and easy to aim for. The sound system isn't much cop, but that's hardly surprising given the Spring's low price.

“I like the look of the stubby gear selector, but unless you move it really slowly, it doesn't register that you want to go forwards or backwards. That's annoying.” – Lawrence Cheung, New Cars Editor

Passenger & boot space

How it copes with people and clutter

The Dacia Spring is about the same size as a Hyundai i10, so it's unsurprisingly fairly cramped inside. Even those sitting in the front will need to get used to occasionally brushing elbows with one another, and the outer edges of the car feel very close to your shoulder.

In the back things are even tighter; taller adults will have to cower to keep their heads away from the ceiling, and sit with their knees wedged against the seat in front. There are also only two seatbelts in the back – so forget about carrying five people, even for short journeys.

Put simply, a Leapmotor T03 is a far more accommodating choice if you need to carry passengers. A BYD Dolphin is even better.

On the plus side, like the Leapmotor, the Spring does have rear doors – so getting in the back is far easier than in a Fiat 500 or Mini Cooper Electric.

There's also lots of storage space inside. The glovebox is a good size, there’s a large cubby carved into the dashboard and the door bins are very generous. Indeed, there's 33 litres of interior storage in total.

The Spring's boot is also fairly impressive with 308 litres of space below the load cover. That means it’s bigger than those of the Leapmotor T03, Fiat 500 and Mini Cooper Electric, and roughly on a par with the ë-C3. There's enough space for the weekly shop, even though the boot opening is quite small and there's a big drop down from the entrance onto the floor.

The rear seatback folds down in one big piece (there's no 60/40 split), and leaves an annoying step in the floor of the extended load bay when dropped. The optional EV pack adds a cubby under the boot floor to stow the changing cable, although it's quite pricey given the Spring's budget billing.

“I don't think the optional EV pack, which adds a box for the charging cable under the main boot floor, is worth paying extra for. It's too pricey.” – Lawrence Cheung, New Cars Editor

Buying & owning

Everyday costs, plus how reliable and safe it is

If we discount quadricycles like the Citroën Ami, you won’t find a cheaper new electric car than the Dacia Spring. The Leapmotor T03 is the closest, costing only slightly more, but even the range-topping Spring costs loads less to buy than an entry-level BYD Dolphin, Citroën ë-C3 or Renault 5.

You can choose between two trim levels: Expression and Extreme. Expression gets the essentials, such as cruise control, air-conditioning, electric front windows and rear parking sensors.

However, we think Extreme trim is worth the extra. It’s available only in conjunction with the more powerful Electric 65 motor and it has some really useful additions, including electrically adjustable mirrors, front parking sensors, electric rear windows and the 10.1in touchscreen infotainment system we mentioned earlier.

The Spring's battery might be small, but unfortunately that doesn't mean you can charge it quickly. Indeed, you'll be waiting around 45 minutes for a 10-80% top-up at a public CCS charging point. Meanwhile, a 0-100% charge at home using a 7kW wallbox takes around 4.5 hours.

The Spring was updated in 2024, but it hasn't been retested for safety by Euro NCAP. That means it inherits the appalling one-star rating of the pre-facelifted model (which wasn't officially sold in the UK). Dacia's reluctance to submit the car for retesting suggests to us that it isn't confident the Spring will perform very well in a crash test, although it does now comes with lane-keeping assistance, speed-limit recognition, a driver attention monitoring system and automatic emergency braking (AEB).

The Spring didn't feature in our 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey, although Dacia as a brand performed very well, finishing in sixth place out of 31 manufacturers. Dacia gives you a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty on most components, although if you have your Spring serviced annually at a Dacia dealer this will automatically be extended to seven years and 75,000 miles.

Meanwhile, the main drive battery is covered for eight years with a cap of 75,000 miles.

“The Spring's poor safety rating doesn't worry me too much when driving around town – but it does on fast A-roads and motorways.” – Dan Jones, Senior Reviewer

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