Renault Group’s Dacia brand opened orders on September 8, 2026 for a fully electric city car starting at €17,900 — roughly $19,500 at current exchange rates, and nothing close to what the cheapest EV sold in the United States costs. That U.S. floor belongs to the 2026 Nissan Leaf, which starts at $29,990, the least expensive new EV sold in the country. The new Dacia Spring undercuts it by roughly $10,000 before any government incentive is applied, and European buyers get considerably more off the top from there.
The Numbers, From Dacia Itself
According to Bloomberg’s wire coverage of the launch, the entry-level Expression trim starts at €17,900, with the better-equipped Journey trim starting at €19,400, both before any government purchase aid. Dacia’s own press materials, published through parent company Renault Group’s newsroom, confirm the car is the first of four fully electric Dacia models planned by 2030 and is built at the Novo Mesto plant in Slovenia — the same facility that builds the Renault Twingo E-Tech. Moving production from China to Slovenia was a deliberate move to qualify the car for European Union and national EV purchase subsidies, which can knock thousands more off the price for eligible buyers. In France specifically, buyers can receive government aid of roughly €3,620 to €6,180 depending on household income, pushing the effective price of the base Spring down toward €12,000 for some buyers.
What You Actually Get
The new Spring is not a highway cruiser, and Dacia isn’t pretending otherwise. It runs a 60 kW (80 horsepower) motor paired with a 27.5 kWh usable LFP battery, good for up to 250 km (155 miles) on the WLTP combined cycle. Dacia’s own figures put 0-100 km/h acceleration at 12.1 seconds and top speed at 130 km/h. Standard charging runs at 6.6 kW AC, with an optional €500 fast-charge package adding 11 kW AC and 50 kW DC capability. None of that touches what a Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Equinox EV, or Tesla Model 3 offers in range or performance. That’s precisely the point: Dacia built a car engineered to hit a price point first and everything else second.
Why Nothing in America Comes Close
The American EV market simply doesn’t build to this price floor. The 2026 Nissan Leaf’s $29,990 starting price is the cheapest new EV sold in the U.S., and it still sits roughly $10,000 above the Spring’s European starting price before incentives — and tens of thousands above the incentivized price some French buyers will actually pay. Part of that gap is regulatory: U.S. crash-safety and feature mandates add cost that a European city car aimed at dense, low-speed urban driving doesn’t have to absorb. Part of it is strategic — no American or Asian automaker has attempted to build anything this stripped-down for the U.S. market since the short-lived Smart Fortwo Electric Drive left showrooms years ago. Dacia isn’t trying to sell the Spring in America. But its price tag is a reminder of how far apart the two markets’ definitions of “entry-level EV” have drifted, and how much room remains below the current U.S. floor for a manufacturer willing to build to it.