New Dacia Spring Revealed with 155-Mile Range and Sub-£18,000 Price Tag

• Dacia has revealed the second-generation Spring, an electric city car built in Slovenia with a WLTP range of up to 155 miles.
• The full range is expected to cost less than £18,000 before any government grant, with UK pricing confirmed nearer to launch.
• Rivals now undercut the old Spring on price, so the redesign leans on extra space, a bigger boot and faster charging to hold its ground.

A cheap EV that grew up without growing expensive

Dacia has pulled the covers off the new Spring, and the numbers matter more than the styling. The old Spring built its reputation on being the UK’s cheapest electric car. The new one arrives into a market where two rivals now undercut it on price, so Dacia has spent its money on space, charging speed and equipment instead of chasing a headline number nobody will remember by Christmas.

The new Spring is built at Renault Group’s Novo Mesto plant in Slovenia, on the same RG-EV Small platform that will carry the next wave of small Renault Group electric cars. Dacia says the platform let engineers cut development time to under two years, a detail that explains how a budget brand keeps launching new electric models while spending less than premium rivals on each one.

What it costs, and who it has to beat

Dacia expects the full New Spring range to cost less than £18,000 before any government subsidy, with full UK pricing confirmed closer to launch. That number no longer makes Spring the cheapest EV on sale. The Leapmotor T03 currently starts at £14,495, and the Citroen e-C3 drops to £18,495 once the government’s £1,500 Electric Car Grant is applied. The Hyundai Inster sits above all three at £20,050.

That puts New Spring in a squeeze it did not face at launch in 2021, when it had the budget EV segment largely to itself. Dacia’s answer is to make the car feel less like a compromise and more like a small family car that happens to run on a battery, with a longer body, wider track and a boot that beats several cars in the class above.

Range, charging and the numbers that decide daily use

New Spring uses a 27.5kWh usable LFP battery for up to 155 miles of WLTP range, driven through a 60kW (80hp) motor with 175Nm of torque. It covers 0-62mph in 12.1 seconds and tops out at 81mph (130km/h), figures built for town and short motorway runs rather than overtaking.

Charging is where Dacia has made real gains. The standard 6.6kW AC charger takes a 15-80% top-up from 9 hours on a domestic socket down to 2 hours 55 minutes on a 7kW home charger. Buyers who add the optional Charge Pack get an 11kW AC charger and a 50kW DC rapid charger, cutting that same top-up to 1 hour 55 minutes at home or 28 minutes at a public rapid charger. Dacia’s own data shows first-generation Spring owners covered an average of 13 miles a day and charged at home three times out of four, so most owners will rarely need the rapid-charge option at all.

The Charge Pack also unlocks vehicle-to-load capability, letting the car power small appliances such as lights, an e-bike battery or a coffee machine from an onboard socket.

More room than the class expects

New Spring grows by 15cm in length and 18cm in width over the outgoing car, now measuring 3.85m long and 1.74m wide. Dacia claims the largest boot in the electric A-segment at 337 litres, rising to 1,283 litres with the rear bench folded flat. A removable, split boot floor lets owners divide the load area, and an optional 18-litre “frunk” under the bonnet gives somewhere to stash the charging cable so it stays out of the boot.

Inside, a 7-inch digital instrument cluster comes as standard across the range. The range-topping Journey trim adds a 10.1-inch touchscreen running Dacia’s Media Nav Live system, with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and eight years of connected mapping included at no extra cost. A new “My Safety” shortcut lets drivers set their preferred driver-assistance systems once at startup, rather than switching off individual warning chimes and lane-keep nudges every time they get in.

Two trims, kept deliberately simple

Dacia has kept the line-up to two trims, Expression and Journey, both sharing the same motor, battery and standard charger. Expression brings 15-inch steel wheels, remote central locking, electric front windows and mirrors, manual air conditioning, rear parking sensors and a 50/50 split-fold rear bench. Journey adds 16-inch wheels, a hands-free entry card, a reversing camera and the larger touchscreen with built-in maps.

Four colours are offered: Agave, Shadow Grey, Diamond Black and Glacier White. Dacia has sold more than 260,000 cars in the UK after launching here in 2013, and the outgoing Spring has found more than 210,000 buyers across 40-plus countries from 2021 onward, so the brand is not short of a track record to lean on while it waits to confirm exact UK trim pricing and order dates.