Dacia Spring on sale now from £169 a month

Though the Dacia Spring’s £15k entry price had already been confirmed, that number was never going to be as relevant in the modern car-buying market as the monthly lease repayment. With the teeny-tiny EV on sale today, we now know the all-important figure: £169. 

That’s what a Spring will cost a month, with a £2,325 deposit on a four-year PCP. The annual mileage allowance is a reasonable 6k, the interest 3.9 per cent (which seems alright given the current 5.25 per cent base rate) and the optional final payment is £6,033. So those that reach the end of the 48 months and want to keep their Spring will have paid less than £1,500 for the lease option – i.e. the total purchase price would be £16,470. 

In addition, while that offer is for the Spring nobody is actually going to buy – the 45hp Expression – plumping for the 65hp version in the same spec only adds a tenner a month to the lease. And that barely gets breakfast in Pret these days. That requires a £2,722 deposit. An Extreme 65 – which adds the bigger infotainment screen, CarPlay/Android Auto and copper accents to Expression spec – is £189 a month with a £2,763 down payment. 

Initial costs can be reduced even further for the Spring, with the option to match monthly payments to a deposit. Again across four years at 3.9 per cent, customers can put down a £217 deposit (Expression 45), £235 (Expression 65) or £246 (Extreme 65) and pay that every month for the lease as well. 

Chargers have been factored in on top. A Mobilize Power Solutions unit is available for £949 installed (able to charge from 20 per cent to 100 per cent in four hours), but the Spring is launching with a £250 contribution towards that from Dacia; the £699 can be added to a monthly cost for less than £20 extra. It’s reckoned that a full charge on a smart off-peak tariff (an Octopus Intelligent Tariff at 7p per kilowatt is quoted by Dacia) could cost less than £2. Two pounds! Even at a pricier rate, a 26.8kWh battery is small, and so wouldn’t need much replenishing. At 10p per kilowatt it’s £2.68, even at 20p it’s £5.36. As a reminder, the Spring is rated at 140 miles on the WLTP mixed cycle and 186 on the WLTP urban test. 

So it looks like a full house on PH comments bingo then: we have a cheap lease deal, a new electric car and a Dacia all in one story. Orders are open now, so deliveries presumably won’t be far behind. Might your name be on one of those new finance agreements? First drive verdict coming as soon as we can get one.