Meet the Dacia Spring - an electric crossover you can purchase in Europe for a ridiculous price

The Dacia Spring is the cheapest BEV on sale in Europe

If one needed proof that European manufacturers are getting serious about decarbonising their passenger car fleets, look no further than the Dacia Spring. A Romanian manufacturer dating from 1966, Automobile Dacia is now wholly-owned by Groupe Renault, and produces a number of passenger and commercial vehicles with an emphasis on practicality and price.

The price of the Dacia Spring varies by country; in Germany it lists for €20,490, in the UK for £14,500 and in Romania for €18,100. Factor in electric vehicle/environmental grants available, and those numbers drop to €10,920 (€-9,570) in Germany, £12,000 (-£2,500) in the UK, and €8,100 (€-10,000) in Romania. Yes, with a generous state grant for environmental vehicles in Romania under the Rabla Plus (Clunker Plus) scheme, this Dacia costs less than some two-wheeled vehicles.

So what’s under the skin? There’s a 33 kW (45 PS) front-mounted electric motor with 125 Nm (92 lb ft) of torque, a 26.8 kWh battery and a compact crossover body that seats five. Before you start decrying the range and performance of those specifications, there’s one more number to consider: Curb weight. At 921 kg (2,030 lb) The Dacia Spring is incredibly light for an electric car, and therefore provides acceptable performance for a city car, and provides a useful range of 225 km (139 miles) on the WLTP combined cycle. That’s perfectly fine for a few days driving around town.

We believe that the future of electric vehicles may look something like the Dacia Spring. It will require a mindset-shift in consumers, but we will no longer be looking for a one-car-fits-all solution, and the Dacia spring is a perfect city car/car-share prospect. The nature of electrification and battery technology means that less mass simply means greater efficiency and range, and therefore a market will emerge for smaller, lighter (and cheaper) BEVs that are designed exclusively for commuting. According to the European Parliament Resolution on Sustainable Urban Mobility, by 2050, 82 percent of Europeans will commute outside an area in which they live (though this may change post COVID-19). Obviously, public transport is key to moving greater numbers of people more efficiently, but Europeans—and Australians and Americans—love their cars, and cheap, efficient urban commuter vehicles will be key to the phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles this decade.