Should you buy one?

Having now tested the Dacia Spring in the UK we find that it is a hard car to recommend. Yes, it is cheap, and to sell a brand new electric car for as little as £14,995 in 2024 there were always going to be compromises. Perhaps for some customers the ones Dacia has made will be acceptable.

To be clear, we have no issue with the small size of the battery pack and the associated 140-mile driving range. Nor are we particularly concerned about the limited performance (though anyone considering the 45hp version for motorway journeys should probably think again). These aspects are perfectly acceptable for the price, as are the limited passenger space and general build quality – which is actually pretty good on the inside.

But the driving dynamics and the one-star Euro NCAP rating are another matter entirely. We’re struggling to think of any other new car will serve you so poorly in these areas, and the number of genuinely good nearly new ones you can buy for the price of the Spring means you really don’t have to compromise. Once again we would point you to our used car weekly deal page, which regularly highlights the Vauxhall Corsa Electric and Fiat 500e as low cost EVs under a year old.

What we like

We appreciate Dacia’s ambition in sticking to its promise of offering low prices by introducing an EV at a cost that significantly undercuts the competition. It should be cheap to run, you can charge it on a three-pin plug overnight, and the interior is at least interesting to look at, with plenty of storage.

What we don’t like 

We continue to be disappointed by Dacia’s approach to safety. Not only is the firm unfussed about improving the Spring’s one-star Euro NCAP rating (it won’t retest the Spring until 2027, it told us), it doesn’t seem to have put much effort into making the car inherently stable in extreme driving situations. The choice of low-grip, low-cost, non-brand tyres should tell you everything you need to know here. We would not buy one.