Dacia's first electric hatch, developed from Renault's RGEV Small / AmpR Small platform and sharing its bones with the Twingo E-Tech, has been caught testing in Europe by Baldauf. It's scheduled for later this year at a target price below €18,000 (roughly $21,200 / £15,700). If that number holds, it becomes Europe's cheapest new EV, and it does so while sharing the Twingo's mechanical underpinnings almost entirely.
What Dacia Changed And What It Didn't
The camouflage hides some detail, but the shape Dacia is putting over the Twingo architecture is recognizable. Squared-off front with more traditional headlights replaces the Twingo's rounder retro-inflected face. The bumper adds a wide lower intake and rugged cladding, which is the current Dacia design language applied to a car that started life as Renault's retro-hatch experiment. The side profile appears largely untouched. The rear gets higher-mounted taillights, a unique bumper, and what looks like a more conventional liftgate than the Twingo's curvier item.
The interior shot shows a floating infotainment panel and a Dacia-branded steering wheel. It is likely to follow the Twingo's 7-inch digital instrument cluster and 10-inch central display, which is the cheapest configuration Renault can offer and still call a car digital in 2026. Dacia will probably leave that as-is.
The Mechanical Package Is The Twingo's
The assumption, confirmed by the platform sharing, is that the powertrain carries over. That means an 80 hp (60 kW / 82 PS) motor producing 129 lb-ft (175 Nm), a 0-62 mph time of 12.1 seconds, and a top speed of 81 mph. None of that is impressive on a spec sheet. It is exactly fast enough for the urban environment the car is designed for and no faster, which is the whole argument.
The battery is a 27.5 kWh LFP pack delivering up to 163 miles (263 km) of WLTP range. That is a number designed to work for a city commuter and fail for anyone treating the car as a regional runabout. Dacia's pitch is that the buyer in question already knows which category they're in, and the price is how the car justifies the range.
Sliding rear seats adjust up to 6.7 inches (170 mm) to trade off passenger space against boot volume. With seats in place, cargo capacity is up to 12.7 cubic feet (360 liters). Seats folded delivers over 35.3 cubic feet (1,000 liters). That is the practicality argument Dacia has always leaned on and the reason the Sandero keeps selling on a platform older than most new buyers.
The €18,000 Number Is What This Entire Car Is About
The marketing story was set when Dacia announced its 2030 roadmap and called for a "confident and decisive entry into electric mobility" built around four new EVs. The first is this car, developed in under 16 months, which is a timeline Dacia could only hit by sharing almost everything mechanical with the Renault cousin.
If the €18,000 price holds, this Dacia is roughly €3,000 cheaper than the Citroën ë-C3 and meaningfully cheaper than the Fiat Grande Panda, both of which had taken over the "Europe's cheapest new EV" title in turn. It also undercuts the Twingo E-Tech it shares a platform with, which is a delicate internal Renault Group pricing conversation that has apparently landed in Dacia's favor.
The €18,000 number is also vulnerable. Recent European launches have slipped above their announced target price as production cost lands harder than planning estimates. Dacia's margin cushion on an €18,000 EV is tight, and the temptation to land at €18,990 or €19,490 on the first spec trim is real. My read is the entry price comes in at €17,990 to hold the "under €18,000" claim and Dacia makes its real margin on the equipment trims above it.
The Competitive Shape
Europe's affordable EV segment is now three cars deep before this Dacia arrives: the Citroën ë-C3, the Fiat Grande Panda, and the Renault Twingo E-Tech (which the Dacia is effectively the budget-rebadged version of). It is about to get more crowded as the VW Group ID.1, the Škoda Epiq, the Cupra Raval entry trim, and the Chery European city EV all land through late 2026 and 2027.
The car Dacia is showing in spy photos is the cheapest one the segment will see for at least eighteen months. Whether that gap is a moat or a brief head start depends on how quickly the Volkswagen Group pricing machine wakes up and decides that being out-priced by a Dacia is unacceptable.
First showroom arrival is expected later in 2026. No exact on-sale date has been confirmed.