DACIA

Sandero also becomes fully electric – Preview

Highlights Sobriety first; limited range of EVs until 2035 inferior to petrol cars Not before 2027 The Dacia Sandero has been an outright bestseller in Europe for many years. The Sandero only had to tolerate the Peugeot 208 in the European sales lists last year. Whether the down-to-earth hatchback succeeds in ascending the throne this year remains to be seen. The Tesla Model Y is currently in the lead this year, but the Dacia is right on the heels of Tesla’s great success. Dacia owes its success mainly to its relatively favorable pricing, but also to the composition of its model range, which, remarkably enough, only has one electrified model – the Jogger Hybrid – and one EV: the Spring. The Dacia Spring was good for 27,438 registrations in the first six months of this year. For comparison: the Sandero kicked it to no fewer than 140,000 registered copies in the same period, while the Duster and the Jogger sold 112,000 and 51,000 units respectively. Although the Spring certainly does its part, Dacia clearly does not have to rely on the Spring. At first glance, the brand seems to have no plans to come up with a brand new EV in the short term, but there is still one secretly in the pipeline.

And an important one too.. Modest specifications Dacia will introduce a brand new Duster in 2024 and a year later it will expand its line-up upwards with an as yet unnamed SUV that will take a place above the Duster. Thanks to Renault’s CMF-B platform – which you also know from the Sandero and Jogger – the new Duster and its later larger sister model will of course have (mild) hybrid powertrains. The next generation of the Dacia Sandero will arrive in 2027 or 2028 and that model should certainly last well into the 1930s. The new Sandero will also be available in variants with or without electrified combustion engines, but the Romanians also have a fully electric version in the pipeline. That’s what Dacia CEO Denis le Vot entrusts to us. It is still too early to express differing expectations about specifications. Without a technological revolution in battery land, don’t count on a model with a range of 500 or 600 kilometers in advance. A battery pack that makes such a range possible would simply make the electric Sandero too expensive. That is of course not possible, Dacia’s ‘budget positioning’ is after all one of their biggest purchase arguments. 

Dacia naturally fills the electric Sandero with technology that Renault then has on the shelves. That also keeps the costs low .. One is dead … It is precisely this great attention to ‘the affordable’ that, according to Le Vot, Dacia must grow enormously in the coming years. In 2022, Dacia sold no fewer than 570,000 new cars and, according to the enthusiastic CEO, the question is not if, but when the brand will hit the million copies. In this hopeful expectation, Le Vot takes into account, among other things, the influence of the Euro 7 standards. Although the associated emission requirements have not yet been cast in concrete, it is certain that this will make cars more expensive in any case. That could work out favorably for Dacia, believes Le Vot. More and more people would therefore look for affordable models. “I see that cars are getting more and more expensive. If a mid-sized car cost € 32,000 a few years ago, it will soon cost € 37,000 now and in a few years it will cost € 42,000. Many people don’t have that much to spend and will therefore look at their next car differently.” Dacia will also embrace the EV in the long term. But until the brand really cannot help filling the showrooms with electric models from 2035, it wants nothing more than to welcome buyers who are not yet ready for an EV. The power of the conscious straggler.

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