Dacia Spring | PH Fleet
Want to know how much a 65hp EV actually costs to run? Tony does the maths...
The novelty and indeed smug pleasure of not having to fork out hard cash at the petrol station is showing no signs of wearing off after six months of Spring guardianship. Brainier testers than us will tell you that the efficiency figure for a Spring is around 5.5 miles per kilowatt hour. All we can tell you is that our electricity provider has just hoicked up our monthly bill by £30 to reflect our additional grid drawings since taking over the Dacia.
None of this is exact, but if we take that £30 a month as a reasonable general indication, that’s paying for around 750 miles per month, which according to our domestic calculator is 25 miles for every £1 of leccy. That’s doing no motorway miles whatsoever and charging through an extension cable with a regular three-pin plug on a normal tariff with nowt special about it - i.e. no reductions for the hours of darkness etc.
From other reputable sources it appears that charging on an overnight tariff could multiply that £1’s worth of mileage by a factor of three or even four. We can’t tell you the comparable costs for any of the conventional ICE cars on our drive (two diesels and one petrol) because we’ve never bothered to work those numbers out.
Like most people, we’ve just been shovelling the fuel in because we had to, as there’s been no alternative. Now, however, pouring £50-£70 into their greedy gullets on what seems to be a far too frequent basis somehow feels kind of wrong. Even on the full-fat charging rate the Dacia is literally miles ahead of our relics.
I haven’t tried the lower-powered 45 derivative, so I can’t comment on whether that would do a job for us. It’s got the same 27kWh battery as the 65, although having enjoyed the point-and-squirt fun of the 65, I think I’d be inclined to stick with that. It is fun too, despite some testers mocking their supposed sluggishness and their failure to handle like Ferraris. I’d be going for Expression rather than Extreme spec because we haven’t been the biggest fans of the Extreme’s dash-mounted infotainment screen.
The tyre pressure monitoring system has been complaining since the early days of our tenure and refuses to pipe down no matter what I do to try and mollify it. The screen in our car hasn’t always illuminated as promptly as we would have hoped it might and the blizzard of multicoloured notifications on the driver’s panel and the array of buttons on the steering wheel all seem a bit unnecessary and out of keeping with the simplicity of the car. But that’s maybe just an old grump (and ex-2CV owner) talking.
Car: 2025 Dacia Spring Extreme Electric 65
Price as tested: £16,995
Run by: Tony M
On fleet since: February 2025
One of these, small, light for an EV and simple, might be its replacement as long as they depreciate to £5k or so after 4-5 years. Cars used to lose 2/3 of their value over 3 years, so dropping that amount over 4-5 seems reasonable.
I happened to have a poke around one the other day and it wasn't a bad as I thought, I can see the appeal. Sadly the child seats I'm using currently would never fit and allow me space to drive it so it's not an option.
One of these, small, light for an EV and simple, might be its replacement as long as they depreciate to £5k or so after 4-5 years. Cars used to lose 2/3 of their value over 3 years, so dropping that amount over 4-5 seems reasonable.
Even as a big fan of cheap/cheerful/crap cars, I have to say it looks totally and ridiculously awkward in real life. The proportions are SO off, it looks like those fake sub-mini sized Range Rover clones from Ali Baba.
Love the ethos, don't mind the specs, etc. but I'd have to give it a big pass. Especially when you can pick up something with a battery twice the size, and by all accounts real suspension etc. for not a lot more comparatively at the moment.
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