Renault’s value brand Dacia is switching production of its low-cost Dacia Spring EV to Europe from China so it can benefit from French subsidies, the company announced. Priced at €17,900 for the base model ($20,789), the Spring will cost as little as €12,200 ($14,169) after French EV credits are applied. Dacia has also redesigned the Spring, making it sit a little higher and adding some sporty allure with a more muscular body design.
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The Dacia Spring will be assembled in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, at the same plant where Renault builds its Twingo E-Tech city car. The Spring now appears to be Europe’s cheapest EV after incentives, which vary depending on country and your household income.
The Spring has been a relative success for Renault, with sale of 210,000 units across the world since 2021. It’s designed to help Renault meet its ambitious 2030 goal of a 100 percent electrified mix in Europe, with half electric and half hybrid vehicle sales. Europe has ordained that fleet emissions must drop 90 percent by 2035 compared to 2021 levels.
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Edit:
Best-Selling Carmakers and Car Brands in Europe in 2026 (July):
1 Volkswagen
2 Skoda
3 Toyota
4 BMW
5 Mercedes
6 Renault
7 Audi
8 Peugeot
9 Kia
10 Dacia
This is good, but for fucks sake, Renault, make Duster and Bigster PHEVs!!!
Can I ask why a hybrid? I keep seeing people asking for hybrids and I don’t understand why not go all-in on electric?
Range anxiety is the reason in many cases. Most people are skeptical about the range and having to charge the car at regular intervals, whereas hybrids can be driven like normal cars. Hybrids also used to get the same government incentives as EVs, making them popular fleet purchases - where most people are then ignoring the plug-in EV aspect, which makes them less efficient than both EVs and even non-hybrid internal combustion engine cars.
Once these people get to experience full EVs, this fear vanishes and they rarely want to go back (I just recently read that 94% of EV owners don’t want to go back to internal combustion engines, with or without an extra battery).
From the perspective of manufacturers, plug-in hybrids are an easy way to lower their fleet emission (since they only need smaller, cheaper, easier to retrofit and engineer batteries than proper EVs), because they can claim extremely unrealistic WLTP ranges, unless drivers dutifully charge them every day, which most, as mentioned, don’t.
A relative of mine had several plug-in hybrids in a row and he was one of few people I know who actually drove them in EV mode most of the time, only using the petrol engine for longer journeys. He’s now made the jump to a proper EV - KGM Torres EVx, an absolute bargain with dealer discounts - and couldn’t be happier. For under €40k, it’s a comfortable, quick, well-equipped and extremely well-made vehicle that is easily capable of completing long cross-country trips. Took me a few years to convince him to go full EV though.