cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/56521103
The all-electric Dacia Spring now starts at just €11,900
Dacia Spring product website (DE)
To take advantage of the full €5,000 off, buyers must sign a purchase or lease agreement by February 28. On top of that, the car needs to be registered no later than June 30.
There are a lot of reasons that wouldn’t fly in the US:
- too tiny compared to the behemoths around. I’d be afraid
- doesn’t say speed but a lot of “city” cars have city speed limits: most people use high speed roads at least some of the time
- as average new car prices pass $50k, maybe people are less likely to have multiple cars than in the past
- legacy manufacturers only build smaller runs of higher profit trims, and have successfully bought protection from competition
When I was married, I did always have a small cheap commuter car, like a Civic, and ensure my ex had the big car that’s also More comfortable on road trips. But I’m no longer married so can’t justify multiple cars. My one car does need to serve the occasional road trip, so I’m more comfortable with my current 300+ mile range.
But there continue to be more full sized pickups on the road and those are what I notice with worse and worse driving.truck guys used to have pride in their driving skills but now they’re some of the worst and just seem arrogant that “I’m bigger than you so can do what I want”. I don’t even think I’d feel safe in my civic anymore and certainly not my old Miata , much less something smaller.
I’m really fascinated by the Slate truck’s simple and modular concept. If that succeeds I’ll be tempted to get that as a second car even with its limited range - it would add capability, a spare resource, and range is plenty for commuting
Looks like a little, simple car that’s great for city use. The range isn’t too bad for day to day use. It’s probably only a viable option in European cities though
Why? How long is a commute in the US? In Canada even a long commute that isn’t some special circumstance would be ~30km and this thing has lots of range for that.
30 km is long?!
I commute 14 km on the bike in Munich. (When the weather is not really icy).
I had a pretty rough 1 hour/60 mile (97 km) commute for two years, but most of my commutes before and since have been around about 30 min/25 miles (40 km). Plenty of people around me commute into the city, and that’s about a 50 mile (80 km) commute. With a range of 140 miles (225 km), it would really limit your ability to do much else on a work day, without a public charge anyways.
Just a few data points from one person… But the US is VERY car-brained, very big, and VERY spread out, so I believe this is pretty common. And while a lot of our land is inhospitable like Canada’s, it’s easier to deal with super hot than super cold so people are literally everywhere, while Canada’s population of course hugs a narrow strip of the southern border. We went to visit my family for Christmas, only 3 states away, but we drove 1200 miles (1930 km) to get there.
The other things to consider are the 19 second 0-60/0-100 speed, and the top speed of 78 mph/125 kph. A lot of our commuting is at high speed on freeways from suburbs to urbs. The slow acceleration could be a liability on super tight freeway ramps and just generally at high speeds in traffic. And it’s incapable of going the posted speed limit of 80-85 mph (129-137 kph) that we have in some jurisdictions. Freeways that fast are uncommon and most do top out at 65-75 mph (105-120 kph), but I have a feeling that needing to push the car to its absolute limits could be dangerous.
I don’t know why people are saying a 200km range is bad. Most people I know don’t drive more than 25km to work per day. Surely even 100km is perfectly fine for a daily driver.
My brother had an 80km range car for years and was perfectly fine.
Is it just that it’s not competitive at this price?
The whole entire point of a car is long road trips though. Especially in Europe, you want to live as close to your job as possible.
Because propaganda has convinced people that a car is useless if it can’t go 300+mi AND only take a few minutes to be ready to do it again. Range anxiety, even though they only fill up maybe once a week and could easily charge an ev at home with just a standard outlet not even a special charger and keep up with their actual real daily use
Exactly, most people just go to work, Kaufland and to visit grandma who most of the time is 100km away. You’re not buying a Dacia Spring to go from Lisbon to Oslo, you’re buying it as a car for daily use.
Thank you for considering Lisbon in your thoughts. It’s very appreciated.
It’s a really low price, but it’s also an incredibly shitty car with terrible safety scores.
It’s a rebadged Dongfeng EV.
False, it’s made in China, but from Renault itself as Renault kze
I‘m not a car guy but I would like to add it also looks absolutely awful. Like so many cars from recent years.
And terrible range. Advertises 300Km per charge. You’re lucky if you get 200
Not everyone lives in the US. In Germany, 70% of all distances traveled by car are only 10 kilometers or less.
200 km range in the summer means 100 km in the winter. i live in finland and i frequently need to drive 100+km away from home. nearest ikea is 130 km away, relatives living in other cities, etc. i imagine it’s the same for a lot of people, not just in the US.
US still just averages 65 kilometers per day.
Don’t assume everyone replying in a way you don’t agree with lives in the US. I am speaking from experience living in the Luxembourg/Germany area…
Even Germans take vacation to visit relatives and vacation homes. A range like that easily doubles a 200Km drive’s travel time.
It’s good if you don’t long-distance travel by car, or if you use it as a secondary car for work commutes. Then it’s perfect.
I knew that this argument would be the second possibility. German Reichweitenangst is strong with you, too it seems.
Hilarious.If there was any European who is closest to the American car ethos, it’s got to be the Germans. Those autobahns, man. :)
Trust me, Luxembourgers are worse. Germans have decent public transport in their metropolitan areas. Luxembourg otoh is more like US suburbia.
I mean, that’s pretty on par for other manufacturers, rule of thumb is about half of rated range during winter. It’s not really the manufactures fault that part, the WLTP standard they have to use is just using a way too high percentage of steady-speed city driving to give a good idea of real-world usage for most people.
So, a Dacia?
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Ever since Dacia was bought by Renault, it’s being marketed heavily throughout the EU :D foarte bun!
I’ve never noticed rhe brand before but in the last year or 2 I see a lot, really a lot of Dacias around here too (portugal).
In the UK too
No no, the line is
🇷🇴🎉🎇ROMANIA MENTIONED 🎆✨🇷🇴I didn’t even know Dacia was its own brand before Renault got it!
I’d love to know how you pronounce it though - specifically the ‘C’. Do you (i.e. Romanians) pronounce it like an S or a K or something else??
I think it should be a CH, like cheese. Not Romanian, just how I’ve heard it pronounced.
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Ah ok that’s one I’d heard (the other being Day-see-ah like the other guy said). Glad to have it cleared up, thanks!
Here in the UK when the brand first appeared the press were saying it like Day-sea-er, but it fairly quickly changed to Dah-cha (like the start of satchel) and has stayed that way.
That pronunciation took off because Top Gear was going to record a segment about Dacia before they hit the UK market.
Top Gear did reach out to Dacia and ask how it was pronounced, but Dacia took so long replying to the email that by the time they did, Top Gear had already filmed it saying Day-see-er. It was too late.
And because of the enormous reach of Top Gear at the time, that pronunciation became solidified in people’s minds.
Or at least this was the story told by Richard Porter, the ex Top Gear producer, on his podcast.
Bad news!
The Dacia Sandero has been delayed.
I’d really like to get this car but most people have told me it’s too risky for me, anyone else has any input?
I can’t load at home or work, but I could load at a station accessible by foot a few minutes from my house, as well as once a week when I go shopping for about 30-45 minutes.
I only have to drive twice a week, 90km per day two days in a row, with no opportunity to load in between, but I could load the day before and the day after. People have told me it’s too risky especially in winter I might not make it on that distance.I have this car since 2024. The previous generation. I can answer some more questions if you wish.
I charge at home. Sometimes at DC when I do some longer trips. Longest was 300km at once. Had to do 2 stops 30 minutes each.
Normally in the summer I get 2km per 1% of battery. That is 11kw/h while driving 110km/h on the Autobahn. During winter it goes down to 1,5km per 1%.
That means I can safely drive 160km in one hop and the charge with some bigger buffer during summer. 100km during winter.
That is for a long trips. I use this car mainly to move around my city. If I wouldn’t charge it at home I’d charge it during weekend groceries. 40 minutes charging on any DC charger would bump it up to 90% easily. So groceries time.
Apart of this this car is a banger. A classic car with no bullshit digital stuff, but electric.
I would love this as a commute car (if it was available in the US). I do have to drive about 80km round trip but it’s only 2-3 times per week so it would be fine. The only caveat would be top speed which would be fine if it’s in the 100 kph range.
Get yourself a used Nissan Leaf. About the same price, does that range. I’ve had one as a commuter car for 10 years. It’s perfect. Only maintenance is new tires and wiper blades. It’s basically paid for itself in reduced maintenance and fuel prices.
Yeah I have seriously considered that. Especially since the vehicle I currently have gets about 17mpg… oof.
“The all-electric Dacia Spring now starts at just €11,900 (around $13,900), thanks to a massive €5,000 (around $5,900 at current exchange rates) discount.”
24kwh battery, 300 km range or so .
300 km out of 24 kWh?
Press X to doubt.
Depends on the weight of the vehicle.
I don’t know what typical ranges are for given kWh, but it’s probably worth noting that it’s quite a lightweight car and that number is for city use, i.e. low speed
300km***
*Downhill
**On ice
Vehicle manufacturers: when I drove to school, it was 150 km and downhill both ways!
Family income of 30k a year max they really just wanna entrap people onto permanent debt.
I don’t get how you come to that conclusion. If you properly read the article you would have seen that the €30k limit is for a subsidy/emission reduction scheme by a governmental organization in Italy bringing the car prize down to €3900. That’s far from pushing the people into debt…
The cost is 6000$ and your soul
Great! Anyway…
