Dacia Spring is the first electric car that Romanian carmaker launched. It is manufactured in China’s Hubei region. Compact SUV has been available in Europe since March 2021.

Dacia Spring is probably the cheapest electric SUV on the market right now. It’s meant as a city car that provides very efficient consumption figures, 11.9 kWh per hundred kilometers.

Dacia Spring comes with a 27.4 kWh battery which gives 230 kilometers of range on a single charge. Charging is a little bit slow in this budget SUV, from 0 to 80 percent in less than one hour.

Exterior and interior of the vehicle are pretty much the same with any other Dacia vehicle, simple on the outside and hard plastic on the inside. This car will be available in most of the Europe and Turkey before 2022. China and Latin America/India have very similar Renault badged versions (Renault K-ZE and Renault Kwid, respectively) of the Spring available to order for a few years.

Performance

Romania’s first electric car carries a small 44 horsepower electric drive unit, allowing the car to go from 0 to 100 km/h of speed in 19.4 seconds, probably the worst speeding performance among the new cars available. But Dacia Spring isn’t meant for long journeys either, do not expect any EV-like instant torque feeling or sports car grade speeding performance from this compact SUV.

Dacia wants this small electric SUV to be the average city car, providing more than 200 kilometers range, enough space to accommodate 4 adults and a little bit of luggage and very efficient, zero-emission drive around the city. And if you would like a more efficient driving session, Eco mode will give you 31 horsepower and limit top speed to100 km/h. Sure, it will be disaster for a highway drive but driving around the city and consuming lowest amount of energy while waiting for the traffic jam to be unstuck is the main idea here.

Design

Everything is aimed for reducing costs in the Spring, because of that entry-level Dacia Spring does not have a touchscreen infotainment unit. But semi-digital dashboard is available for all of the Spring versions. Non-adjustable steering wheel allows driver to clearly see this digital gauge cluster. There is also an optional rear camera placed in the “Dacia” logo. And that’s all the technological equipment that Spring has on its setup.

Back seats of the Dacia Spring are not very comfortable for the average adult passengers, very little leg room and hard seats with no support will definitely feel like sitting on the pavement. Luggage capacity is 270 liters in this small SUV, enough for the weekend groceries, but long journeys will be tough with this small luggage and uncomfortable back row.

Range and Charging

Spring has a mediocre 27.4 kWh battery. Dacia says that Spring drivers will be able to drive more than 300 kilometers on a single charge if they don’t exceed the speed limits on the city traffic where EVs most efficient to run.

Thanks to optional features, Dacia Spring has a version that supports 50 kW DC charging. 0-80% in 56 minutes while AC charging will take 4 hours to fully charge the battery.