The American new car market is a mess right now. It’s obvious that automakers only care about catering to the wealthy and regular workaday cars are increasingly disappearing from the market, or are getting priced wildly out of the hands of working class folks. There are only a small handful of new cars that can be purchased for less than 20,000 greenbacks, and none of them are electric or hybrid, despite the economically-advantageous benefits to reducing fuel use and operating costs. If you’re looking for something miserly to do your daily commuting in comfort, it would be something like the new Dacia Spring EV that we absolutely won’t be getting in this country. And that’s a shame, because it would be the perfect car for many.
This is an all-electric mini-utility that has the cute ute form factor that most American buyers could live with. It’s big enough for four adults, and some of their stuff to get across town. It has a single electric motor powering the front wheels making a tepid-but-adequate 64 horsepower. The small motor and compact size allow it to offer 137 miles of range from a tiny 26.8 kWh battery. That small battery helps keep the cost down, and according to the UK press, it should come in “under £18k” which is a bit over $22,000 at current exchange rates. In Germany, where EV incentives are high, buyers are getting Springs for around 14,000 euros ($15,138).
That small battery also helps keep weight down, as the Spring weighs just 2,170 pounds ready to rock and roll. From an enthusiast perspective, this small-battery efficient-drive seems promising for future electric sports cars or hot hatches.
According to government sources, the average American is paying about 16 cents per kWh of electricity right now, which means you could charge a Dacia Spring from flat to 100 percent for about $4.28. AAA says a single gallon of gasoline will run you $3.27 right now. Not only is it cheaper to buy, but it is much more frugal, too.
The Dacia Spring doesn’t break any new ground or do anything totally different in its design. This is just a regular car that happens to be powered by electrons. It’s cheap, cheerful, and ready to get you from A to B, so long as A and B aren’t more than 137 miles apart. The average American commute is 40 miles round trip. This would easily be able to get a theoretical “you” back and forth to work at least twice, three times if you’re a risk taker, between charges. If you can charge at work or at home, even on a regular 110v outlet, you’d replenish all of the miles you used overnight and never have to worry about public charging infrastructure.
The interior isn’t anything special, but you can’t expect too much when you’re buying a car under $25,000 in the U.S. right now either. Put this up against a Mitsubishi Mirage interior, for example, and I’d rather have this one. It’s modern and spacious enough for daily use, the screen is big enough to be useful, and there are actual HVAC knobs!
The previous-generation Dacia Spring was Europe’s third-most successful electric machine in 2022 and 2023, shifting 140,000 units. It seems unlikely that it would do those kinds of numbers here in the U.S. as the market seems to favor expensive luxury SUVs, and Americans tend to label anything with a 0-60 time over six seconds as “slow” in 2024, but this could be the modern answer to the Volkswagen Beetle. If a cheap EV came into the U.S. that average people could afford, it might actually be a success.
Dacia is part of the Renault group, which doesn’t have any dealership network to leverage here in the U.S. but maybe it could partner with a manufacturer to bring it in as a captive import. Maybe it’s time to revive the captive import industry again, while we’re at it. Who has the balls to bring the cutesy Dacia Spring to America?