Restyled from top to bottom – even its tailgate was entitled to a modification of the glazing as well as the trim, which is not common –, the Dacia Spring will run until 2028. Restyled as a “mini” Duster, it is now in formal coherence with the rest of the range. But the hardest part awaits her: the end of the quiet river where, alone in the running and benefiting from the CO2 bonus, her life was easy. It still has a few points to stand out from the crowd, like in Belgium where, with local taxation helping, the basic version with 45 hp which is no longer offered here is available from €7,950. But for the rest, since the French state penalizes cars made in China – the Spring is built on the Shiyan industrial site, in the province of Hubei, in central China – the cheapest electric is not more subsidized. So here it is in competition with cars that are a priori more expensive but which, “bonus” by the State, end up at almost the same price.
Dacia Spring electric: catastrophic sales for months, but can they start again?
A Spring 2 made in Europe
That said, it is impossible for Dacia to abandon its only electric car for the moment. To take over from the Spring launched in 2020, the Romanian brand will therefore have to review its strategy. It will no longer be able to count on the opportunism of the first version born Renault Kwid in India, then switched to electric in China under the name Renaut City K-ZE. A model which is also available locally under different labels, Venucia e30, Dongfeng Aeolus EX1, Fengxing T1 or even Fengguang E1 and Nano Box. While in Iran, the nickname of Spring is IKCO K112. But all these clones will no longer have anything in common with Spring “2”, which will absolutely have to be made in Europe.
Renault Kwid: all these versions of the Dacia Spring imagined but never brought to fruition
A good complement for the Twingo
The possibility of production in Morocco, where Dacia has two factories (Casablanca and Tangier) can indeed be ruled out. Locally, there is no market for an electric city car, no matter how low-cost. Especially since manufacturers, in order to limit transport costs, have every interest in manufacturing as close as possible to the customer. It will therefore be the Slovenian and Romanian factories, benefiting from less expensive labor than in Western Europe, which should be called upon. Renault has already announced a target of 150,000 Twingos produced each year in Novo Mesto. For comparison, since its launch in 2021, the Dacia Spring has sold 150,000 units in Europe, including nearly 60,000 copies on the French market.image
Renault’s big boss, Luca De Meo, reiterated during the Paris Motor Show in October that he remained open to sharing the technical basis of the Twingo, namely the AmpR Small platform. Even if Volkswagen finally closed the door to a collaboration, the CEO keeps in mind the idea of teaming up with a Chinese manufacturer to develop a small, affordable city car at a lower cost. Like the association with the Chinese Leapmotor, also present in Paris, Stellantis’ new partner, whose Polish factory in Tichy will be used to manufacture its cut-price T03 city car. Within the same group, a Twingo shared with Dacia would already allow greater distribution of the model and amortization of expenses. In the same way, on the upper floor, it is already established that the electric Renault 5 E-Tech and the new 4L – manufactured in Douai and Maubeuge – will fully exploit the synergy with Nissan and Mitsubishi, who will offer their Micra and Colt on sockets.