The Dacia Spring makes most sense when it is judged as an inexpensive urban EV rather than a cut-price substitute for a long-range family car. At £14,995 at launch it removed one of the biggest barriers to buying a new EV, but the 140-mile official range, four-seat cabin and modest rapid charging mean the use case needs to fit the car.

The Spring is one of those cars that becomes much more appealing once you stop asking it to do a job it was never designed for. If you expect a £15,000 EV to cover 250 motorway miles at 70mph and then take a huge rapid charge, it will disappoint. If most journeys are commuting, shopping, school runs and local errands, the idea suddenly becomes much more convincing because you are not paying for a battery and level of performance you may never use.

Design and first impressions

The 2024 update made the Spring look far more like a current Dacia rather than a cheap EV from a previous generation. The front and rear styling are cleaner, the cabin was redesigned and the car gained a more modern digital interface, but it remains deliberately simple and compact.

At just 3,701mm long, it is genuinely city-car sized. That gives it a real advantage in tight parking spaces and narrow streets, and the upright body helps make better use of the limited footprint than a lower, more conventional supermini shape would.

Inside the cabin

The interior is basic, but the 2024 redesign makes it feel much less outdated. Depending on trim, there is a digital instrument display and a larger central touchscreen, while the overall layout is straightforward and easy to understand.

I would not expect premium materials at this price, and I do not think the car needs them. The Spring's job is to be durable, simple and inexpensive, so the more important questions are whether the seats are comfortable enough for your normal journeys and whether the controls are intuitive rather than how soft the dashboard feels.

Space and practicality

Despite the tiny exterior, the Spring provides four seats and a 308-litre boot, rising to around 1,004 litres with the rear seats folded. That luggage figure is surprisingly useful and makes the car more practical for shopping and everyday equipment than the body dimensions suggest.

The four-seat layout is the obvious limitation. Anyone who regularly carries five people should stop there rather than trying to justify a compromise that will become inconvenient. Taller adults should also try the back seats with the front seat set correctly because no amount of clever packaging can completely overcome such compact dimensions.

Range and charging

The 26.8kWh battery gives the 65hp version up to around 140 miles on the WLTP combined cycle. That is modest beside larger EVs, but Dacia has deliberately kept the battery small to reduce cost and weight, and the Spring comes in at under a tonne in a market where many electric cars weigh twice as much.

Compatible versions can rapid-charge at up to around 30kW DC, while normal AC charging is around 7kW. By modern standards that DC figure is slow, but the battery itself is small and the car makes far more sense when it can recharge overnight or while parked for several hours than when it is expected to live on motorway rapid chargers.

Performance and everyday use

The 65hp motor produces 113Nm and takes 13.7 seconds to reach 62mph, with a top speed of 78mph. Those figures make the Spring slow by modern standards, although electric torque should still make it feel more responsive in town than the acceleration time suggests.

I have not driven this particular Spring, so I would want any test drive to include a faster A-road or motorway slip road rather than just urban streets. The real question is whether the performance feels confident enough when there are two people aboard and traffic is moving quickly.

Who is the Spring really for?

This is where the car becomes easy to understand. If 60 or 70 miles is an unusually busy day and the car can charge at home, the Spring gives you plenty of margin. If a 150-mile motorway journey happens every week, buying the cheapest EV on sale could become a false economy because you would spend too much time planning around its limitations.

That is not a criticism of the Spring so much as a reminder that the cheapest option only represents value when it suits the job. For the right household, the simplicity and low purchase cost are exactly the point.

Leasing and alternatives

The Citroen e-C3 costs more but offers substantially greater range, performance and family usability, while the BYD Dolphin Surf is another affordable city-EV proposition. The Fiat 500 Electric is worth considering if style and cabin feel matter more than achieving the lowest possible purchase price.

Verdict

The Spring is not a universal recommendation, and that is exactly why the proposition is so clear. It is a very small, very light and very inexpensive electric car aimed at people whose journeys are also relatively small.

If you can charge at home and rarely travel more than 100 miles in a day, it deserves serious consideration because the price advantage is enormous. If you regularly use motorways, need five seats or depend on rapid chargers, spend more on a car that removes those compromises instead of forcing the Spring into a role it was never built to fill.