2023-06-10 22:00:00
With a new look and outdoor image, Dacia is flying to new heights. The Jogger becomes a mobile home, the Spring gets a performance upgrade.
Bigger, heavier, more expensive – almost every new product introduced in recent years obeys this logic. And yet there are pleasant exceptions to the rule that new cars are becoming more and more opulent, more luxurious and therefore simply unaffordable for a large part of the population. One of them is the Romanian Renault subsidiary brand Dacia. Represented in Austria since 2005, they have been successful with simple, robust and, above all, inexpensive vehicles. In the previous year, more than 7,600 new cars were sold in Germany – just behind the parent company Renault in eleventh place in the brand statistics and ahead of well-known calibers such as Peugeot, Mazda, Opel and Fiat, but also hyped climbers such as Cupra or Tesla.
Fresh, dynamic look brings Dacia increase in sales
Despite the continued success, Dacia did not want to rely solely on the previous “cheap is cool” strategy. The busy Renault CEO Luca de Meo gave the cheap brand a new corporate identity last year, which also includes a completely new brand logo. The somewhat outdated design gave way to a fresher, more dynamic look. And the calculation seems to be working. The retouching, which was basically manageable, led to an astonishing increase in sales figures within a few months. After the first quarter of 2023, Dacia is in ninth place in the registration statistics in Austria with a market share of 4.2 percent – an increase of 70 percent compared to the same period in 2022. As things stand today, the Sandero is the best-selling model on the private customer market and number one in the B- Segment, the all-wheel drive SUV Duster is number one in the B-SUV segment. The brand’s first electric car, the Spring, even grew by an impressive 133 percent in the same period.
Top equipment “Extreme” for the Dacia-Mocelle, Spring, Sandero Stepway, Jogger and Duster
As if that weren’t enough, the Romanian brand is now stepping up a gear with the French owners: the new top equipment variant “Extreme” is now available for the four flagship models – the Spring, the Sandero Stepway, the Jogger and the Duster. These are characterized by an outdoor-inspired exterior design and a number of equipment details intended to underline the robustness of the vehicles. At first glance, the new exterior paintwork “Oxide Green” for the Sandero Stepway, Duster and Jogger and “Slate Blue” for the Spring catch the eye. All models also come with copper-colored elements and stickers reminiscent of topographical maps. Also new are the gloss black 16-inch alloy wheels, which are even 17 inches in the Duster. The interior is ready for small and large everyday adventures thanks to particularly robust rubber floor mats and the new, washable MicroCloud fabric on the seats.
The Extreme equipment also offers technical features: the new Extended Grip traction control is standard on the models with two-wheel drive. This can be activated via a button on the center console and adapts the way ESP and ASR work so that wheelspin can have better grip on loose surfaces.
Dacia Jogger with “Sleep Pack” for outdoor fans
Dacia has come up with something very special for their “all-purpose weapon”, the jogger: the so-called “Sleep Pack” is now available as an introductory offer for all camping and outdoor fans. This is a wooden box weighing around 50 kilograms, which two people can fix in the trunk of the Jogger. If necessary, the construction can then be converted into a 1.30 meter wide and two meter long double bed in just a few simple steps, which rests on the folded rear seat bench. The roof height is then absolutely tolerable 60 centimeters. The box itself offers up to 250 liters of storage space. Also practical: the Sleeping Pack can be ordered when buying a new car as well as followingwards, albeit a bit more expensive.
Another advantage is compatibility: the five- and seven-seater variants can be converted into narrow-gauge campers, and the built-in bed can also be installed without any problems on older model years. If you invest another 180 euros, you get dark window inserts for maximum privacy, an additional outdoor tent increases the number of sleeping places to four for around 400 euros. According to Dacia’s marketing team, the Sleep Box is just the beginning of a whole range of offerings from the “InNature” range. The idea of equipping the all-wheel-drive Duster with a roof tent is viewed quite positively in response to specific inquiries.
But the most important novelty is the electric car Dacia Spring
By far the most important new feature, however, is the Spring electric car. The Stromer, which is only 3.73 meters long, has been sold a whopping 110,000 times since its market launch in 2021. Last year, the Spring was third among the best-selling e-cars in Europe for private individuals. With the Extreme 65 version now presented, the engineers tease out 65 hp from the asynchronous motor instead of the previous 45 hp. The sprint from 0 to 50 km/h takes 3.9 seconds, 1.9 seconds faster than with the basic version. This value is also relevant because, according to Dacia, Spring owners travel at an average of 26 km/h. The chassis, which hitherto quickly reached its limits when cornering at high speed, has also been revised on the Extreme 65 and now provides a little more confidence. Apart from the equipment-related design elements, the Spring Extreme 65 remains technically identical. The same applies to the range of up to 220 kilometers according to WLTP. The price is 24,590 euros, following deducting the e-car subsidy and the environmental bonus, it comes to 19,190 euros. Meanwhile, the weaker Spring 45 is being phased out.
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