Dacia Spring Review 2025

Ignoring battery-powered and less practical quadricycles such as the Citroen Ami the UK now has a new champion as the most affordable electric car — or does it? A low price will only excuse a certain amount of shortcomings after all. Find out whether this cheap EV will have you jumping for joy in our full Dacia Spring review.

We're not sure how happy we are about the Dacia Spring being on sale in the UK at last. It's been on sale in Europe for a number of years but this heavily revised version is the first to reach these shores. No other electric car is anywhere near as cheap but the compromises necessary to bring the bottom line down to £14,995 are major. 

It's painfully obvious the Spring has its roots in a car — the Renault Kwid — originally destined for emerging markets. It's unrefined and noisy on the move, not particularly fast and handles poorly thanks to its tall, soft suspension and budget-brand tyres. 

The Dacia Spring claws back some ground by being reasonably well equipped considering its bargain basement price tag and it's surprisingly stylish inside. Certainly a lot more so than it was before the car was facelifted and brought to the UK.

This small SUV scores well in terms of practicality, with a decently sized boot and an extra under-bonnet 'frunk' storage area. It's also good to see the simple but smart YouClip accessory mounting points making an appearance here, a feature we've enthused over in the larger Duster Duster.

The cabin is another place you really feel where the compromises are to get the price down. It feels low rent and plasticky in a way that cheap and not especially cheerful cars from a couple of decades ago did. 

All of this hasn't stopped Dacia selling well over 100,000 Springs across Europe so far. Time will tell if UK buyers are a little more picky but our advice would be to either spend a bit more on a Citroen e-C3 or the related Fiat Grande Panda Electric.

They're both a little larger than the Dacia Spring whereas the Hyundai Inster is of a similar size to it albeit for significantly more money thanks to high-end features and a choice of two far larger batteries.

Or if you're willing to take a punt on a new brand you're unlikely to have heard of then closely matching the Spring in terms of price and size yet trumping it for equipment and driving range is the Leapmotor T03. Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but still.

Failing that go for something like a pre-registered Vauxhall Corsa Electric, examples of which we've seen for less than some versions of the Spring. 

Dacia Spring: Range

Alarm bells start ringing the moment you spot the kind of tyres fitted to the Dacia Spring. They're Linglong Greenmax EcoTouring and they're not much good at all — particularly if the roads aren't dry. Even in mildly damp conditions, they struggled, spinning-up during more modest throttle inputs and causing the traction control to have a massive hissy fit when the accelerator was fully pressed. 

Worse still when going around a corner or exiting a roundabout, the Spring has a tendency to push wide as the tyres displayed a noticeable lack of grip. Making things worse the Dacia sits high on soft suspension meaning it leans over significantly in corners even when you think you're taking it easy. 

This doesn't mean the ride is soft and cosseting sadly. The suspension feels very basic and seems to be overwhelmed when going over bigger speed bumps, not helped by the cars very short wheelbase.

The steering also feels odd with a sensation of slightly moving even when driving in a straight line. We can only assume this is down to those thin tyres and the car's narrow track causing it to follow every tramline or change in camber in the road surface.

We've only driven the Dacia Spring with the more powerful 65PS motor but it's the only one we'd recommend as it's on the limit of what most drivers will find acceptable in terms of performance. The entry-level 45PS powertrain takes an agonising 19.1 seconds to go from 0-62mph which won't be much fun when going down a motorway slip road. 

The 13.6 seconds the 65PS car takes to do the same acceleration benchmark doesn't sound brilliant either but it can dash to 30mph in four seconds, meaning in urban environments it feels perfectly adequate.

You might even describe it as eager off the line. Sometimes too much so — it's quite keen to set off as you lift off the brake pedal which makes parking a jerky experience. 

The drive selector also needs some work. It takes a few goes to get it to do want you want, whether that's putting it from drive back into neutral, or from neutral into reverse and so on. 

The updated version of the Dacia Spring hasn't yet been assessed by Euro NCAP but the pre-facelift version sold elsewhere in Europe was given a dismal one-star rating by the safety body in 2021.

As far as the individual categories go, it was awarded 49% for adult occupants, 56% for children, 32% for its safety technology and 39% for vulnerable road users. 

The safety tech in the Spring has since been updated with these newest versions featuring automatic emergency braking (albeit one that only detects other cars, not pedestrians or cyclists), lane-keeping assistance, a driver alertness monitor and traffic sign recognition.

While it wouldn't change the Euro NCAP score Dacia could make the car safer by simply fitting better tyres that stop the car quicker during wet conditions. As it is, it's worrying easy to trigger the car's ABS if conditions aren't perfect. 

Considering its size and price the Dacia Spring has a decent-sized boot offering 308 litres of space which expands to 1004 litres with the rear seats folded. There's also a 35-litre storage area — a 'frunk' if you care to use that Americanism — under the bonnet but only if you buy the required storage tray as an accessory.

While not exactly massive it's a good place to store the charging cables. Speaking of which, you'll find the charging socket on the front of the Spring behind the Dacia logo on the faux grille. 

The Spring is a four-seater which is fairly normal for a car of its size, all being well-served in terms of space. There's also a lot of room for oddments including large door bins and a deep tray in front of the gear selector. 

Around this area you'll also find Dacia's YouClip system to which multiple accessories — that you buy separately — can be fitted, including a phone holder and a cupholder.

You might want to get the latter as the Spring doesn't have cupholders as standard, unless you count the little recesses in the door bins which you wouldn't want to trust with a hot takeaway drink.

Most of the materials inside the Dacia Spring look and feel cheap. There's quite a bit of painted metalwork inside which is usually covered with plastic trims in pricier cars.

The seats wouldn't look out of place in a much older car and the whole cabin of our test model had an odd odour to it, rather like a GP's waiting room and quite unlike the 'new car smell' in anything else.

The finish is fine, though. Everything fits together as it should and there are no rough edges or anything like that. We sense those cheap plastics should at least wear the miles okay.

Given how cheaply the Dacia Spring is being sold for it's a surprise to see a 10.1-inch infotainment touchscreen in Extreme specification cars. It's not bad in terms of responsiveness and the menu system is easy to get your head around.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity come as standard and we had no problems getting Google Maps to display on the screen using the former. 

Pleasingly you don't have to use the screen to change climate settings, as there are physical dials for that job. We did get a weird issue with screen scrolling through the list of radio stations by itself though.

The Dacia Spring range starts with the Expression 45 for £14,995 while the more powerful Expression 65 is £15,995.

If you want a higher level of specification then the Extreme 65 is your sole choice at £16,995. In other words, no model of the Spring is expensive but the compromises needed to get such low figures are significant. 

All of the Dacia Spring's rivals will go futher on a charge thanks to having larger capacity batteries so keep that in mind when comparing prices.

With five seats the larger Citroen e-C3 can be had for £21,990 while its Fiat Grande Panda Electric cousin is set to cost even less than that.

Hyundai's Inster is as plush and well-appointed as it is cutesy. Like the Spring it's a four-seater although it feels anything but bargain basement inside, reflected in its £23,495 asking price. Set to cause the Dacia the biggest headache is the generously equipped Leapmotor T03 — there's just one model in the range and it costs £15,995.

Dacia Spring running costs should be minimal, especially if you steer clear of public chargers and can get on a variable electricity tariff with lower kWh unit prices at certain times of day.

Even though we tested the Spring at a cold time of year and did a lot of motorway cruising — which is never good for eking range out of an EV — it proved efficient at 3.9mi/kWh compared with the official WLTP Combined cycle claim of 4.6mi/kWh. 

The low purchase price compared with EVs only being liable for a 2% Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax, although this jumps to 3% after 1 April 2025. Either way the Spring will be hilariously cheap as a company car.

Dacia Spring: Driving range and charging

All Dacia Springs have a dinky 26.8kWh lithium ion battery giving a driving range between recharges of 140 miles on the standardised WLTP Combined cycle.

Under the same test conditions the Citroen e-C3's 44kWh battery manages 199 miles, the Hyundai Inster stretches that to 203 miles with its 42kWh power pack and the 37.3kWh battery in the Leapmotor T03 is quoted at 165 miles.

At least recharging the Dacia Spring doesn't take long thanks to that small battery. Using a domestic wallbox with a 7.4kW electricity flow rate will take the Spring's battery from 20-100% charge in four hours.

For those occasional times when you need to use a public rapid charger be aware that on a DC connection this Dacia can only accept a 30kW flow rate, so don't waste time waiting for a 100kW charger to become free if there's a 50kW one already available — it won't charge you any faster.

Either way a DC recharge from 20-80% takes 45 minutes.

You won't struggle to get your head around the Dacia Spring's trim levels as there are only two — Expression and Extreme.

The Dacia Spring Expression is okay in terms of equipment considering the price featuring front electric windows (anyone in the rear will be getting a good workout with old-school hand-wound windows), manual air conditioning and rear parking sensors. 

Upgrading to the Dacia Spring Extreme adds a 10.1-inch touchscreen infotainment system, electrically adjustable door mirrors with a copper-coloured finish to the covers, rear electric windows, lane-keeping assistance and a rear parking camera. Albeit a rather low quality one that might remind you of a 20 year-old smartphone.