The new Renault Twingo has a new sibling in town, one that wears a Romanian badge. Dacia is rolling out a completely new entry-level electric vehicle that shares its platform with the Twingo, effectively replacing the previous model. This new car, which the company is calling the 2027 Spring, arrives just as the Twingo begins to take on European roads.
A Different Kind of Spring
The original Dacia Spring hit the market in 2021 as the automaker’s first electric offering. It was built on the same architecture as the gasoline-powered Renault Kwid, a design meant to keep costs extremely low. That architecture, however, did not fare well in crash tests, leaving the Spring feeling more like a European car-sharing vehicle than a serious passenger car.
The new version benefits from the Twingo’s development. It will be built in the same factory in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, rather than in China. Since the Twingo was engineered specifically to be affordable—starting just below 20,000 Euros—the team had to carefully select which features to include and which to leave behind to keep the price down.
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One notable omission is the Twingo’s sliding rear seat. This feature, which optimizes cargo space in the Renault, has been cut from the Dacia. In its place, the Spring features a longer rear overhang, which allows for a larger trunk. The new model offers 337 liters of storage compared to the Twingo’s 307 liters.
The decision to remove the sliding rear seat was likely made to reduce production costs and simplify the design. However, the longer rear overhang provides additional cargo space, making the Spring a more practical option for daily use. The 50/50 fold of the rear seats also adds to the car’s versatility, allowing for easier loading and unloading of larger items.
Visual Changes and Cost-Saving Measures
From the windows down, the Spring looks distinct from its Renault cousin. The designers removed the round, easy-to-sketch lines of the Twingo in favor of a blockier, more serious aesthetic. The sheet metal is unique to the Dacia, and the rear end features a design that shares similarities with the Opel/Vauxhall Signum.
The interior follows the modular styling found in other Dacia models, featuring a recycled blue plastic finish on top of the dashboard. To save money, the rear windows in the Spring are pop-out units rather than roll-down versions. The cabin also retains the MySafety button, which can silence the beeps and bongs of the infotainment system with two presses.
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The use of passive air cooling instead of active battery temperature management is a significant cost-saving measure. However, it may impact the car’s performance in extreme temperatures, where fast charging may be limited. The recommended AC charging method, on the other hand, is a more gentle and efficient way to charge the battery, which can help extend its lifespan.
Specs and Pricing
To keep things simple, there will only be one Spring version on offer, priced below 18,000 Euros in some European countries such as Italy. The battery is just 27kWh in size, with the aforementioned 80 horsepower motor and an estimated 155 miles of range (WLTP). For a city car and a commuter, that’s absolutely fine, especially if you can just plug it in at work as well as at home. However, in the UK you can get the outgoing, still Chinese-built Old Spring (is that an aftershave?) for just £12,000, which is 14,000 Euros or $16k.
The new one will be priced at around £18,000 in the UK, or $24k. Naturally, various subsidies and grants will play a role in different European countries when it comes to pricing the Spring, and I don’t have a clue whether our Finnish market will even get the car. Make no mistake, the new car is a lot more car, wider and longer, even if the drivetrain numbers don’t change much: the battery size goes up from 24kWh, power is boosted to 80 hp from 70 in the base version, and range is improved by 15 miles at best. Top speed is 13
