Dacia Spring

It's officially the UK's cheapest electric car, but is this small hatchback the full package or an exercise in cutting corners? On sale October Price from £14,995

- Neil Winn

WHEN YOU'RE WORKING at the office or away from home, one of the most important questions of the day is "What's for lunch?". Sure, you could treat yourself to a takeaway, but a supermarket meal deal contains all the key components for a lot less money.

The Dacia Spring is, in effect, the meal deal giving you all the essentials for a price starting at £14,995. That undercuts our current favourite small electric model, the MG 4 EV (£26,995), as well as the recently released Citroën e-C3 (est £21,990) and the Fiat 500 Electric (£24,995), making it the cheapest new electric car you can buy. Even the range-topper costs just £16,995.

Sounds tempting. But to keep the price low, the ingredients that have gone into the Spring are more Farm Foods than Waitrose. We're talking about a car with steel (rather than alloy) wheels, a small, 26.8kWh (usable capacity) battery, an official range of just 140 miles and a maximum charging rate of 30kW.

You do, however, get to choose between two motor outputs giving you either 44bhp (badged Electric 45) or 64bhp (Electric 65). We tested the latter car and, despite its modest official 0-62mph time of 13.7sec, we were surprised to find that it feels quite punchy around town. From a standstill to 40mph, it piles on speed with genuine enthusiasm, before tailing off if you try to keep on accelerating.