Dacia Jogger Hybrid

This is easily the cheapest hybrid seven-seater you can buy, but does it represent good value? On sale Now Price from £22,595

- Neil Winn

GIVEN THAT DACIA is only just releasing its first hybrid model, it's safe to say the brand is late to the electrification party, but that tardiness is entirely intentional. In a recent interview with What Car?, Dacia boss Denis Le Vot explained that keeping costs affordable for its customers is the brand's number one priority and it would therefore turn to hybrid power only when the technology was deemed cheap enough.

So, was it worth the wait? Well, the hybrid set-up in the Jogger is borrowed from established Renault E-Tech models such as the Clio and Captur. It consists of a 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, two electric motors and a four-speed automatic gearbox.

Those electric motors give the hybrid a healthy 28bhp boost over the petrol Jogger 1.0 TCe, shaving 1.1sec off the 0-62mph time (down to 10.1sec), but in reality it doesn't feel significantly quicker than the regular car. Put your foot down and it takes a long time for the gearbox to react and drop down to a lower gear, and even then, the long gears (remember, there are only four of them) mean that you only really get going when you finally reach the top of the rev range. Do this and you'll also notice a fairly prominent drone from under the bonnet.

The hybrid is at its happiest around town, where you can cruise around on a wave of electric power; Dacia claims that you'll spend up to 80% of your time running on electric power alone in urban environments. The absence of a clutch pedal makes the hybrid a much easier inner-city companion than the 1.0 TCe, although stopping smoothly can be tricky. That's because the regenerative braking system (which harvests energy under deceleration to extend the car's electric-only capability) causes inconsistent responses when you press the brake pedal.