Dacia Spring Cargo launched as UK’s cheapest electric van
Dacia has unveiled a commercial version of its budget-friendly Spring EV.
The Dacia Spring Cargo is intended as an urban delivery option for businesses looking for a cheap zero-emission vehicle.
Priced from just £14,995 (excluding VAT), the Spring Cargo is the UK’s cheapest electric van and also qualifies for the £2,500 plug-in van grant. With the grant applied and a business contract hire deal through Dacia’s finance provider, companies can obtain the Spring Cargo for just £149 per month.
The 3.7-metre-long Spring Cargo is N1 homologated but, from the outside, looks just like any other Spring. Inside, the five-door supermini’s rear seats have been removed and a mesh bulkhead installed just behind the front seats. The reconfigured rear gives up to 1,085 litres of cargo space and the Spring Cargo has a maximum payload of 370kg.
Under the surface, the Spring Cargo uses the more powerful of the passenger car’s powertrains – a mighty 64bhp motor driving the front wheels, coupled with a 26.8kWh battery. In the Cargo version, that should give up to 140 miles of mixed driving or up to 186 miles in purely urban use. A 20-80% charge takes around 45 minutes on a 30kW public charger.
To keep things simple, there’s just a single trim level, based on the Extreme-spec passenger car. All versions are finished in Polar White paint and come with a 10-inch central display with built-in sat nav and smartphone mirroring, cruise control, manual air conditioning and electric front windows. Remote central locking, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera are also standard, as is vehicle-to-load function, allowing external devices to be powered from the van’s drive battery.