2024 Dacia Spring EV first look – is this the best value NEW electric car?
Electric cars are too expensive and they’re too heavy these are things we hear a lot in my world so what about if I told you that this the daa spring an electric Budget car that we haven’t actually had on sale in the UK yet until
Now comes in at less than a ton in weight and it’s probably going to cost about £17,000 so in this episode I’m going to tell you everything I know in a turbo tour of the daia spring EV I’m Johnny Smith you’re watching the late break show and this episode is proudly
Supported by blackcircles.com Britain’s biggest online tire retailer so if you’re watching this outside of the UK then this is probably not big news to you because the data spring launched in 2021 to a lot of leftand Drive markets and the underpinning of the data spring which is
Actually a pretty small car I’ll put the dimensions on the screen somewhere now I thought this would use lots of components from renault’s toolbox the Zoe for example which has been around now for what a decade this is not the case this is actually an electrified
Version of a a piston car from China called the quidd it’s not really used any of the um traditional Renault parts that I thought it would it uses Renault Alliance parts that it’s had access to but what’s really amazing is it’s got a 26 kW battery pack and it’s got a wltp
Range they say of perhaps 14345 miles and yet it weighs under a ton and that’s the golden thing no one’s been able to achieve that and it’s a four- seater it’s not a five- seater but it’s a four- seater small family car so frontal design well the thing about da
Is obviously it’s a budget brand that’s always the point of it it’s value driven this thing I quite like this new daia logo this is not EV specific it’s kind of like a DNA strand it reminds me a bit of the DeLorean Motor Company the
DMC as well maybe I’m the only one but within this kind of new grill cover here is the charge port you have to pop it right next to the Bonnet release with a latch so just like the Zoey it’s in the nose here take the bungs out which I
Don’t like bungs but then when you’re paying this kind of money for a car I will accept it and it can CCS charge but don’t expect for this kind of price point to be able to Rapid charge it quickly it DC rapid charges up to 30 KW
Okay and that Ables you to do 20 to 80% in 45 minutes or it’ll charge in 4 hours on a 7 kW home wallbox but the other thing that it can do which I was amazed at I believe this is a standard feature on the new spring
Is it can vehicle to load in other words you can plug in an appliance and you can power stuff off the battery pack which is something you haven’t been able to see on cars of this kind of price point at all the other thing you have when I
Pop the Bonnet which is that release next to the charge port yeah there it has an optional Little very simple recess little fruit SL frunk thing which sits above the the motor and the other ancillaries uh that you to put your charging cable in and there you go again
There’s that real honesty to it loads of stuff’s visible it’s very simple but actually looks well finished I have to say lights just thought I’d stick the lights on cuz again a lot of thought has gone into the this kind of light Signature Bar here
Almost a bit Volo with the old Thor like a budget Thor’s hammer but those are the main those are the main beams down down right there this blanking panel’s got a bit of sort of like tire mark graffiti on and there’s three different trim levels of the new daa spring uh I’ll
Talk about those a bit more when we get inside but the top one’s extreme then there’s an expression and then there’s essential the essential has hub caps come around it’s not often you get to see this but it has actual hub caps yeah there we go steel wheels with hub caps
On it again people that buy daers they don’t want to mess around and pretend to the world that they’re something that they’re not so there’s a real I think there’s a real authenticity to just playing it like it is actually I didn’t realize that all Springs come with steel
Wheels and hubcaps but the entry level cars have got 14in diameter rims out of pure curiosity I later asked the daia design boss whether I could remove some of the hub caps and see a base model spring with just its bare Steely Wheels sure he said take two off so I did now
What tire size 165 6515 again a really small affordable tire size now when it comes to needing tires for your car be your car electric budget sport or even a commercial vehicle like a van head to blackcircles.com head to the black circles website enter your vehicle registration number and your post code
And then you’ll find the most suitable tires for your car and your budget there are thousands of reviews of different tires from real customers to help you choose the best tires for your car and with the black circles click and fit service with over 2,000 Tire fitting
Partners there will be a garage or a mobile tire fitter conveniently located near you no I have a got a great deal of time with the spring today unfortunately so I’m going to try and rattle around it as quickly as I can so this platform is
Called the cmf d a platform which is part of the Renault Nissan Alliance underpinned by a lot of Asian market cars this is classed as an a segment car I believe only available as a fiveo and only available in electric form anyway um as a four- seat not a five seat it’s
Very very bare in inside like you’d expect for a car like this and I’m thinking well if you were going to buy a brand new car for sort of 17 electric the focus must be on wanting an electric brand new car because otherwise you could buy a used say of this kind of
Range and this kind of spec an eolf a Volkswagen eup or something like that so I’d look at those as a consideration before diving into this unless your focus is a new car come around the back to the spring you’re greeted by this sort of like panel which reminds me of
80s cars where they had that kind of um reflective optional panel between the lights and it’s a bit Jazzy like a like a night club like a new nightclub sign I kind kind of like it I think it’s all right and I especially like there’s a
Crease in the roof which looks like the indent you normally get in a bonnet and there’s a cool crease around here as well so there are some interesting lines to the spring I think that I’ve just noticed and the design language is kind of cohesive these sorts of shapes the
Same as the front light clusters and the same as the as the letters and the fonts like that you’ve got a button release for the boot here that’s just a solenoid release like that and then you lift up the boot and this is really good although it’s slightly tapered in the
Entry there that is a really good size boot I don’t know if you can see it’s quite dark as they usually are with black carpet and stuff now what is that that is a 306 L boot in there which is 6 more per than the outgoing model from
2021 1,4 lers with the rear seats folded down um so that is I’m actually really impressed with that that’s pretty good I mean you can see where they’ve cut the cost on da here there’s no trimming on the inside of the tailgate this is just pressed steel with a little bit of cover
For the uh for the rear wiper mechanism and the third brake light but you know you pays your money you makes your choice however there’s something that you do need to know about the dater spring on the one hand when I read the re the review here it said the Springs
Energy Efficiency and carbon foot footprint were particularly praised in 2022 the previous car when it was awarded the maximum five star rating from the Independent European organization green endcap so in other words it class has a very green car in terms of the cost of production on I
Guess the CO2 of the production but in terms of Euro endcap as in crash safety it scores one out of five so don’t get green encap and endcap mixed up do that at your Peril beam rear suspension as I would have expected and uh really good ground clearance when I first started
Driving an um daas I did it for the TV show fifth gear and I went over to Romania which is where daier from one of the key points of daa models back then was the ground clearance was raised above normal Rena because the quality of the roads in Romania were
Awful fast forward to now and I think Romanian roads are a lot better but this does seem to have an excellent ground clearance which is is worth mentioning cuz probably while Romanian roads have got better in that time British roads have got worse basic but not too
Basic that’s what I would say about the interior of the spring I’ve got big chunky rubber floor mats but there is there is carpet underneath there the door cards are really really thin um but with good size pockets for stowing stuff and there’s a massive cubby down here to
To Stow things interesting toggle to shift the gears there but I’m pleased to say there’s an analog handbrake again keep cost down one less thing to worry about electric handbrakes are just satanic I hate them and the top ranking um car model has this which is a a
Touchscreen um and that’s not going to be available in the entry level which will just have apparently an interface for your smartphone which begs the question I think if you’re a daia person do you want this sort of thing I probably don’t I’d probably just want a
Dock for my smartphone let my smartphone take all the software updates let my smartphone do all of the navigation and all of those sorts things and not have any of that baked into the car that’s just my personal opinion I’m noticing a lot of Renault bits and Bobs which is a
Good thing like that the volume control there these stalks are very renoy and actually yeah it feels like there’s loads of there’s loads of leg room the foot Wells are nice and open I don’t know if you’re going to have heated seat option but there’s definitely a pair of
USBS there and physical knobs for the important stuff like heating uh fan control and obviously these are the windows the windows are on there’s no switch gear on the doors whatsoever it’s all in board which is usually a cost-saving thing and there’s a pleasant tray is it rubber line no but there’s a
Pleasant tray just there we don’t have many trays for stuff on Modern cars and that’s outlined in white plastic the same as this binacle here the same as this handle and this this well down there okay stop a second there’s something else I learned about the Springs practical cab C after we
Finished filming you see that light it can detach and it can be moved around and put in other places because it’s part of daa’s designed ukcp accessory range all sharing a square click clip style system you can attach various accessories to the center console or the dash such as a storage pouch phone
Holder with or without induction charger cup holder bag hook or that portable torch on the parcel shelf tray plinth thingy CL very clever and the seats integral headrest which I think is fine for me in the front here but for people in the back I always worry about it masking a
Load of visibility let’s have a gander I’ve put the seat back to how I would probably drive this car it’s actually this is as far back as the spring seat goes there’s loads of give in the fabric but I I would I could at a push sit
Behind myself but I’m not going to just excuse me for a second I’ve just put this forward a little not completely forward uh so I can sit in the back back seat’s completely flat uh the floor’s almost flat there’s probably about an inch of of of of transmission raise as it were
In the middle there um and I’m sitting I can sit completely upright I’ve got pretty good headro this does dominate visibility somewhat and I think it would even more if I was a a kid if you’re buying a Dai and you’re expecting I don’t know lots of Technology
And plushness you’re buying the wrong car but there’s an honesty to it like I said before and I think that’s what I like about the daa brand it doesn’t mess around it just gives you what you want and if you want a new car that uses a
Lot of parts bin from Rena Nissan then that’s what you’re going to get this is the first daa spring to get regen breaking I don’t think it’s adjustable and we don’t have all the details of the spring as yet but we do know it’s being launched in March in the UK for the
First time obviously in right hand drive which hasn’t been done before there are going to be two power outputs 45 horsepower or 65 horsepower from the 48 Kow motor it’s going to do not to 62 in 14 seconds that’s the fastest time and the 45 horsepower I think is going to be
Like 19 that sounds horrendously slow 14 seconds um but actually I think the early zoies were around about that this is the kind of car that daa says would make a perfect kind of second car so if you’re a house hold that is thinking about buying an electric car but doesn’t
Perhaps want to commit with their main car this is one of those cars that you could consider to be a second vehicle with its 143m wltp from that 26.8 KW battery which I’ve just notic is down there you can see it from underneath the car it does quote to make you feel a
Little bit better a 0 to 31 mph score of 3.9 seconds or 5.8 for the lower ranking car so if you’re using it a lot in cities 0 to3 is actually more important than 0 to 60 is it not so if you’ve seen the daa spring since 2022 this is
Effectively a facelift of that car in terms of tech it’s largely the same um they’ve just put some different cladding on it like this the the front and rear are different um there’s also some new colors of which this is one of them this is brick red I actually like this color
And they do something that’s sort of slightly military in beige which I kind of like as well having a lowcost high value EV is something we’ve wanted in the UK for a long time and I know it will appeal to lot of people because we get messages every week saying EVS are
Great but they’re too expensive in there too plush well the spring kind of bucks that Trend as long as you buy it at the entry level but before you do one thing I would recommend is look at the residual values of used EVS because there’s two three-year-old EVS on the
Market right now that are around this price point which might appeal to you more all always try before you buy hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the late break show if you haven’t already subscribed I would love you to subscribe and maybe you could become a patreon of
Ours and you get videos such as this usually earlier than the public thank you
2024 Dacia Spring EV first look – is this the best value NEW electric car? The new electric car from Dacia is finally confirmed for UK sale, and it could be as cheap as £15,000. Using a platform from Renault Nissan in China, the Spring is a small 4 seat family EV that promises electric range of up to 140 miles and some Volvo design language. Oh, and no alloy wheels – just hubcaps!
Thanks for stopping by The Late Brake Show.
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Enter your registration number to the website and you choose between a wide selection of different types of grades of tyres suitable for your car.
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Jonny Smith
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CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:14 Under a ton
0:58 2021 version
1:22 Renault Kwidd
1:38 RANGE
1:50 Front end design
2:14 Charge stats
2:54 V2L as standard
3:10 Under bonnet – frunk?
3:34 Lights
3:52 TRIM LEVELS
4:05 Hubcaps!
4:50 Affordable tyres
5:50 Consider e-Golf or e-Up
6:28 Rear design
7:05 BOOT
7:58 Euro Ncap fail?
8:31 Ground clearance
9:06 INTERIOR
10:57 Clever clip accessory system
11:55 Rear seats
12:48 Regen braking
13:04 Two power outputs
13:50 0-30mph!
14:30 Verdict
#cheapestnewev #newdaciaspring #thelatebrakeshow #4k
