Can you really live with a cheap electric car?

The contenders

Dacia Spring 65 Extreme

List price £16,995
Target Price £16,130

At launch, the Spring made brand new, warrantied electric car ownership cheaper than ever. We’re putting it through its paces in top-spec trim

Leapmotor T03

List price £15,955
Target Price £15,995

Arriving soon after the Spring hit the UK, the T03 is the Spring’s closest rival, and the second cheapest electric car you can buy today

Electric cars used to be an expensive option. Just a year ago, the cheapest you could buy was the £26,995 MG 4 – hardly a bargain when you consider that the cheapest new car of all, the petrol-powered Dacia Sandero, could have been yours for around half that.

Now, though, the landscape has changed so dramatically that some of the cheapest new cars in the UK are powered by batteries. Take the new Dacia Spring, a small hatchback that starts at £14,995 – just £695 more than an entry-level Sandero costs today. Or if you want a bit more performance and equipment (and many will), the price is still a seemingly reasonable £16,995 for the top-of-the-range 65 Extreme version.

And the Spring isn’t the only EV (electric vehicle) at this price point; there’s also the Leapmotor T03. If you haven’t heard of Leapmotor before now, don’t worry – neither had we until recently. It’s one of a growing number of Chinese brands launching new cars in the UK, except this one has the backing of the Stellantis Group, which also owns Citroën, Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot and others. There’s only one version of the T03 and it’s yours for £15,995.

The test

Rather than put these cars through our usual group test process, which involves lots of performance testing and data gathering at our proving ground in Northamptonshire, we decided to do something a bit different. That’s because these budget electric cars are designed mainly for short journeys and we wanted to find out how they’d handle real-world commuting.

Our two guinea pigs were reviews editor Will Nightingale and head of video Doug Revolta. Will lives just less than 10 miles from the What Car? office, and his commute involves a mix of 20, 30 and 40mph roads. Doug, on the other hand, lives more than 50 miles away and a big chunk of his drive to and from work is on the motorway. Still, both cars should theoretically be able to manage his roughly 105-mile round trip; the Spring has an official range of 140 miles and the T03 promises 165 miles.

Each driver would try their commute in both cars, switching cars for the second day. They’d start at home with a fully charged battery and charge back to 100% at the end of the day. The amount of energy needed for that final charge would be measured using a kWh meter, allowing us to analyse efficiency and work out running costs for a variety of situations.

Will’s commute

Even in this modern world of flexible working, roughly three-quarters of people live within 10 miles of their place of work. So, Will’s commute is a perfect testbed for this type of small electric car – especially since he has off-street parking and can charge at home.

Both of these EVs can officially accelerate from 0-62mph quicker than a 1.0-litre Kia Picanto. They didn’t need to showcase that on   Will’s commute, of course, but both cars feel urgent enough when pulling away from traffic lights and onto roundabouts. Ultimately, the more powerful T03 can build speed a little quicker, but you rarely notice this when you’re driving around town.

You do notice the T03’s sharper handling, though. Its quicker, more precise steering means you can zip around roundabouts with more confidence. The Spring has softer suspension and feels a bit wallowy as a result, plus the first few degrees of steering lock have very little impact on the direction you’re going. In short, the Spring is neither as agile nor as fun to drive as the T03 in urban environments.

You might imagine that the Spring’s squidgier suspension would give it the edge for comfort, but surprisingly this isn’t the case around town. True, the initial impact of a big bump is soaked up slightly better, but a fraction of a second later there’s a rebound as the car (ahem) springs back in the opposite direction. This is particularly pronounced when only one side of the car catches the obstacle.

The suspension also goes about its business quite noisily, with loud booms reverberating around the Spring’s sparsely insulated interior. Yes, it’s a cheap car, but it’s a shame it doesn’t hide that fact a little better; on top of the din on the move, closing a door produces a sound not dissimilar to dropping an empty tin of baked beans on a marble floor.

The T03 is hardly a Mercedes S-Class, but you do at least feel protected from the outside elements by more than a sheet of clingfilm. And while the ride is nowhere near as calm and plush as it would be in, say, a Renault 5, the firmer but more controlled suspension of the T03 is definitely preferable on a typical urban and suburban commute like Will’s. 

The T03 also has a better driving position. You sit higher up with a much better all-round view of your surroundings; the Spring’s windscreen pillars can hamper visibility at junctions. Neither car has reach adjustment for its steering wheel but you can move it up and down in both, and the T03 even has a height-adjustable driver’s seat. Said seat also provides better lower back support than the Spring’s, and the T03’s pedals line up better with its seat and steering wheel. There’s even some padding on the door armrest, whereas the Spring’s is likely to bruise your elbow with its hard plastic. 

On the subject of hard plastic, you’ll find plenty of it in both cars, but it would be unreasonable to expect anything else for the money. That said, the T03’s dashboard feels more solid and better screwed together, and its plastics have a more pleasing texture that makes it a little more appealing inside. Again, the Renault 5 and  even the Citroën ë-C3 are much smarter inside, but both of those EVs cost many thousands of pounds more to buy. 

Doug’s commute

Neither of these cars was designed with motorway driving front of mind, so Doug’s commute was always going to be more of a challenge. The T03 started out fairly well, though – its extra oomph proving handy when joining a busy M3 during the morning rush hour. Its performance advantage may not be that noticeable around town, but it definitely is on faster roads.

There aren’t many more positives on the driving front, though, and the T03 is actually a less agreeable high-speed motorway cruiser than the Spring, hopping and bouncing around like an excited puppy. The softer Spring is more settled, ironing out minor lumps and ripples more adroitly than the T03. The bigger bumps and potholes that really upset the Spring are (thankfully) not very common on the motorway.

The Spring is still the noisier car, though, and that’s saying something, because driving at 70mph in the T03 is akin to being trapped in a phone box during a hurricane. Put simply, it isn’t a pleasant experience driving either car at the national speed limit – and you certainly wouldn’t want to be doing it every morning and evening.

What's more, at these speeds, the Spring’s one-star Euro NCAP safety rating weighed heavily on Doug’s mind. The testing – which was carried out back in 2021 – was based on an older version that wasn’t officially sold in the UK; the car we get is the facelifted model. However, it’s unlikely that this mechanically similar updated version would get a much better score. There was no Euro NCAP appraisal available for the T03 at the time of writing, but it comes with more standard safety kit, including blindspot monitoring.

Doug relies heavily on Google Maps for his commute; not because he can’t remember the way but because of the real-time traffic information it offers. Fortunately, the Spring (in Extreme trim at least) comes with smartphone mirroring as standard, allowing him to get directions via a 10.2in touchscreen that’s positioned helpfully high up on the dashboard.

The T03 has a touchscreen, too, but this 10.0in effort is set annoyingly low down on the dashboard, and there’s no smartphone mirroring. That means you either have to use the in-built sat-nav (which isn’t brilliant) or buy an aftermarket cradle so you can fix your phone to the dashboard. It’s also frustrating that you have to use this touchscreen to adjust the air-conditioning; the Spring has proper knobs and buttons for frequently performed task.

Both cars are, of course, practical enough to carry the sort of paraphernalia most people bring to the office. Actually, both boots go above and beyond here, swallowing Doug’s chunky bag of squash rackets. The Spring’s load bay is slightly bigger overall, but that car is also noticeably more cramped in the rear seats. 

A six-footer would much rather travel in the rear of the T03, thanks to the far more generous head and knee room it offers. But if you need to drop the kids at school on your way to work, both cars will be fine for the job, with rear doors and ISOFIX child seat mounts to make life easier. They do have only two rear seats, though.

Doug was slightly worried that the Spring might not make his roughly 105-mile round-trip to and from the office without a charging stop. However, despite it being pretty chilly on both days (the temperature ranged from 2-10degC when he was on the road), both cars made it back to his house at the end of the day with around 10% of indicated charge remaining.

The numbers

So, these are the two cheapest electric cars on the market, but how much do they cost to run? Well, for Will’s commute of just under 20 miles in total, both cars pulled 3.5kWh of energy from the grid. That translates to impressive efficiency of 5.5 miles per kWh (m/kWh) and means a total of less than a pound in charging costs at the current energy price cap of 27p per kWh.

That cost could be brought down to around 25p if Will signed up to a cheap overnight tariff and paid 7p per kWh for his charging. That isn’t bad at all when you consider that his train fare would average out to £9.83 a day, assuming he bought an annual pass that allowed three days of travel per week. And then he’d have to put up with a half-hour walk to and from the station every morning and evening.

Doug’s commute was at much higher speeds, so unsurprisingly efficiency took a tumble; the Spring averaged 4.0m/kWh and the T03 3.6m/kWh. For the Spring, that meant a total energy usage of 25.7kWh at a cost of £6.95 (or £1.80 on a 7p overnight tariff). The T03 pulled 31.3kWh from the grid at a cost of £8.46 at the price cap (or £2.19 on a cheap overnight tariff).

Electricity bills are only part of the story, though; what about the other costs involved with running these budget EVs? Well, both are in the same group (25) for insurance and both cost the same amount (£195) to tax every year. The Spring is slightly cheaper to service, though, and it’s expected to depreciate at a slower rate, so it’s likely to prove the slightly cheaper option if you’re buying outright and planning to sell after three years.  

However, most buyers will opt to sign up to a PCP finance agreement, and here there’s barely anything to split them. Put down a small deposit (just £200) and you’ll pay £199 a month for the T03 over the next four years, assuming an annual mileage of 6000. The Spring will cost you £201 a month on the same terms.

We can’t give you much of a steer on reliability because these cars are brand new to the UK. However, both have an eight-year warranty on their batteries to give you some peace of mind. The T03 comes with a four-year/60,000-mile warranty on most other components. The Spring gives you only a three-year/60,000-mile warranty, but that period is extended if you keep the car serviced by Dacia, up to seven years and 75,000 miles.

The T03 is slightly more generously equipped, with a panoramic glass roof and adaptive cruise control as standard, but – as we mentioned earlier – there’s no smartphone mirroring for Apple or Android devices. Both cars come with electric windows (front and rear), air-conditioning, a reversing camera and front and rear parking sensors.

Not that you’re going to buy either of these EVs for regular long-distance travelling, but on the rare occasions you need to make a long trip, the T03’s 36kWh (usable capacity) battery can be charged from 10-80% in roughly 53 minutes using a public CCS charging point. You’ll be waiting around 45 minutes for the same 10-80% top-up of the Spring’s smaller, 25kWh battery.

Our verdict

On one hand, entry-level electric cars have come a long way in the past decade. Back in 2015, a BMW i3 cost £26k and had a real-world range of about 70 miles, while the non-premium Nissan Leaf cost about £22k and could do around 80 miles. Now, though, there are two £16k EVs on sale that can easily manage a 100-mile journey, mostly on the motorway, in fairly cold weather.

Still, while they can technically manage it, the Spring and T03 aren’t really built for these kinds of trips. We’d advise thinking carefully if you need to regularly venture onto fast A-roads or motorways, and perhaps to look at a second-hand Kia e-Niro or a new petrol-powered Hyundai i10 instead. Both are quieter, more comfortable and feel a good deal more solid and stable at high speeds.

If, however, most of your trips are short ones, you have off-street parking (for home charging) and you want a new car with a good warranty that will cost peanuts to run, the T03 has undeniable appeal. It’s decent enough to drive around town, plus it has a respectable range, perfectly usable rear seats and a surprising amount of standard kit.

The mere existence of the T03 makes the Spring pretty hard to recommend. It isn’t outclassed in every area (boot space and infotainment are two notable exceptions) but overall the T03 is a more rounded option and is just as good value if you’re buying on PCP finance.

Costs and stats for our journeys

Will's commute

Doug's commute

Dacia Spring 65 Extreme

Price £16,995
Engine Electric motor
Power 64bhp
Torque 83lb ft
Gearbox 1-spd automatic
Battery size 25kWh (usable capacity)
0-62mph 13.7sec (official)
Top speed 81mph
Official range 145 miles
CO2, tax band 0g/km, 3% D

Read our full Dacia Spring review >>

Leapmotor T03

Price £15,995
Engine Electric motor
Power 95bhp
Torque 117lb ft
Gearbox 1-spd automatic
Battery size 36kWh (usable capacity)
0-62mph 12.7sec (official)
Top speed 78mph
Official range 165 miles
CO2, tax band 0g/km, 3%

Read our full Leapmotor T03 review >>

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