Best new Dacias coming soon
Everything you need to know about new Dacia cars out this year and coming very soon
Dacia first came to the UK in 2013 and started by selling the Dacia Sandero for just £5,995, making it the cheapest car on sale in the country at that time. It followed up with the excellent Dacia Duster SUV, proving that bigger cars could be super-cheap as well. The brand has been a big success here and has sold over 250,000 cars in Britain in that time. There’s more to come, too, as the Renault-owned maker has several new models available and some more coming very soon.
Dacia Bigster
The Dacia Bigster is the brand’s first crack at a mid-size SUV, meaning it’s going up against best-sellers such as the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage. However, the Duster’s bigger brother manages to undercut them both, and many others in its class as well, with an astonishing starting price of £24,995.
Dacia has worked hard to provide the level of refinement, space and equipment that customers expect from a family SUV, and among the highlights are large dual displays and a panoramic sunroof (another first for Dacia).
The enormous 667-litre boot is way larger than you’ll find in any of its key rivals, and the engine line-up consists of a mild-hybrid petrol, available with front or four-wheel drive, and an all-new full-hybrid powertrain that can return up to 57.6mpg and allows for pure-electric driving around town.
Dacia C-Neo
The ‘C-Neo’ is Dacia’s internal name for a new C-segment hatchback that the brand could pit against hugely important cars like the Skoda Octavia and Volkswagen Golf. We know it’ll use the same CMF-B platform as the Bigster, suggesting it’ll also get the same engine options, and that it’s one of two new models Dacia will launch in the C-segment of the market soon. But otherwise very little is known about the car right now.
Dacia Duster
A previous Auto Express Small SUV of the Year, the Dacia Duster is a fantastic-looking car, with an interior that’s just as bold, and features a revised infotainment system including a new 10.1-inch touchscreen. And yet, prices start from under £19,000 – only slightly more than the model it replaced.
The Duster comes as standard with a simple three-cylinder, 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engine, boosted by a 48V mild-hybrid starter-generator. This TCe 130 engine is paired with a six-speed manual, but is offered with the choice of two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive. Meanwhile the Duster Hybrid 140 uses a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine, plus an electric motor and a small battery that allows it to spend up to 80 per cent of the time driving around town in EV mode. The Duster is also available as a commercial vehicle, which could save some tax money for business users, and there are hybrid versions, too.
Dacia Spring
After years of deliberation, the Dacia Spring has finally come to Britain and it starts at £14,995. That makes it the cheapest full-blown EV on sale in the UK, and the second cheapest electric car on four wheels behind the Citroen Ami quadricycle. In fact, the Dacia Spring competes directly on price with petrol-powered superminis like the Hyundai i10, although it even manages to undercut that by nearly £1,000.
Dacia Spring successor
That’s right – even though the Dacia Spring has only just arrived in the UK, it’s been available in Europe for a while and work is already under way on a new, affordable A-segment EV that will serve as its replacement.
The as-yet-unnamed baby EV will be based on the reborn Renault Twingo – another cut-price electric city car coming soon – will cost less than €18,000 (under £15,000 at the current exchange rate) and will be developed in just 16 months, meaning it’ll be ready to hit the streets next summer. Importantly, Dacia’s new entry-level EV will be built in Europe, so it can avoid the tariffs being imposed on electric cars produced in China.
Which new Dacia model are you most looking forward to seeing on the road? Let us know in the comments below...
