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Dacia will keep the Spring name for the next generation of its electric city car, it has revealed.

The new model, which is twinned with the Renault Twingo and built in Europe, unlike the current China-built Spring, will be officially known as the New Spring.

However, a new preview image of the £16k EV's rear end shows it will be badged simply as Spring. 'New' will be used to differentiate the two models, which will be sold in parallel for some time.

It is expected to be revealed at the Paris motor show in October, but Dacia has not yet confirmed a launch date, nor given any more details of the car's specification. It does say that it will come with "four real seats and a proper boot"; the Twingo has up to 360 litres of space behind the back seats, for reference.

The firm decided to keep the Spring name because it builds "on the continuity of a model that has become a benchmark", it said.

Recent spy shots of the New Spring testing show how closely it will resemble its Twingo twin. Like its retro sibling, the Dacia has a raked C-pillar, curved roofline and rounded rear windows, plus similar surfacing around its wheel arches.

Yet significant differences are also evident: it loses the Twingo’s signature rounded front light design for a thin gloss-black panel, like that on the current Spring. At the rear, it does not have the Twingo’s lozenge-style window shroud, and the brake lights are notably higher-set than those on the Twingo.

Although it is positioned similarly to the current Spring, it will not immediately replace that model. Speaking to Autocar, Dacia product boss Patrice Lévy-Bencheton said “they are still quite different” – it will be slightly larger and wider, and its design takes greater influence from Dacia’s SUVs.

Dacia has yet to give firm technical details of the car, but it is likely to closely match those of the Twingo, with a 27.5kWh battery giving a range of just over 160 miles. Notably, Dacia has confirmed the model will be priced from less than €18,000 (£15,600), which would undercut the sub-£20,000 Twingo and make it one of the cheapest EVs on sale.

Three more Dacia EVs in next four years

Dacia has committed to the launch of three further electric vehicles over the next four years, although it has not yet given full details of them. One, however, will be the electric version of the next-generation Sandero, which, the company has confirmed, will adopt a “multi-energy powertrain range”. 

As previously reported by Autocar, it will use Renault’s CMF-B platform, which allows for pure-combustion, hybrid and electric powertrains.

The Sandero will “remain the value-for-money benchmark in its segment”, said Dacia. It was for years the cheapest car on sale in the UK.

As well as increasing its EV line-up, Dacia will continue to expand its hybrid offerings. While around a quarter of Dacias currently sold feature a hybrid powertrain, the goal is for that to reach two-thirds in the future.

The Striker and Bigster will be key to growing sales in the larger and more profitable C-segment. That market currently accounts for around one fifth of the brand’s sales, but the aim is for the combination of the two vehicles to increase that share to one third in the coming years.

More broadly, Dacia will continue to lean on what it calls a “unique business model”, drawing on a “disciplined” design-to-cost strategy that, helped by the use of shared group platforms and a lean distribution system, gives it a cost advantage of 15% compared with rivals, it says.

Dacia is also aiming to further strengthen its customer loyalty. It claims that more than 70% of owners stick with the brand when buying a new vehicle, with a further 10% switching to Renault.

The Maserati Granturismo, Grancabrio and Grecale have all been updated with fresh faces that bring them closer in appearance to the MCPura supercar, while gaining additional power.

Design chief Klaus Busse said the harder-edged look was started with the MCXtrema – a track-only car that “was never meant to be beautiful” – before being evolved with the MC20 GT2 Stradale and then the MCPura. He described the fresh design as “elegance with intent”, with more aggressive faces intended to make the three cars look lower and wider.

The twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 employed by the Granturismo and Grancabrio Trofeo has been boosted to 582bhp, an uplift of 40bhp compared with the previous iteration. 

Maserati engineering chief Davide Danesin said this is thanks to an increase in turbo boost pressure from 5000-7200rpm, with “some minor modifications” to enable this. “This provides a much more sporty experience when driving because the engine is linear to the limit,” said Danesin.  

He added that Maserati has reworked these models’ exhausts to “deliver an even stronger sense of engagement during dynamic driving”. Their eight-speed automatic gearboxes, meanwhile, have been recalibrated for greater responsiveness.

As well as more power at the top end, Maserati has given the Granturismo and Grancabrio a new ‘country’ drive mode for use on rougher road surfaces. This raises the ride height by 25mm while softening the dampers and the engine’s power delivery.

“The country mode came from our experience and from customer feedback,” said Danesin. “Given the nature of the Granturismo, the car should be really convenient and usable every day. We want to take the Maserati sporty driving experience into the everyday world.”

The electric Granturismo and Grancabrio Folgore do not gain any power but do get a significant boost in range, up from the previous 280 miles to 335 miles. This is chiefly due to the addition of a system that disconnects the front motor when its additional power reserves (or traction) are not required, such as cruising on the motorway. This reduces rolling resistance and therefore energy consumption. The cars’ electrical control algorithms have also been updated to “reduce the gap between [official WLTP] range and real-world performance in demanding conditions”, said Danesin.

Inside, the Granturismo and Grancabrio have been overhauled with new materials, including metal gear selector switches with haptic feedback. 

The Grecale, meanwhile, receives a new iteration of the V6 that has been retuned to produce 385bhp. This slots into the range between the existing four-cylinder Modena variant and the range-topping Trofeo, which has a 523bhp version of the V6.

The Grecale Folgore has had its range boosted to 360 miles from the previous 311 miles, owing to the same measures taken with the electric Granturismo.

One of the cleverest things about the latest Dacia Duster is that its creators avoided messing it up.

Better than that, they refined and improved it while maintaining its very attractive price (starting from £21,845) and its singular character - a real feat in a car market stuffed with me-too affordable crossovers.

Despite changing the platform, giving it new styling inside and out, hybridising most of the powertrains and killing off the faithful old diesel, they've maintained it as "a paragon of simplicity, practicality and everyday toughness", which is a description we applied to it a couple of generations ago.

Another supreme achievement of the new Dacia broom is to get the styling so right: it's sharp-edged and chunky in a way that sweeps away the stultifying drive-to-schoolness of many cars in this class.

The interior contains similar achievements. The essential shapes match the a-bit-rugged exterior looks so that you don't even mind a generous helping of hard plastics, choosing them to see them as durability personified.

One thing you will especially love about the Duster is its size. It's a shade bigger inside than the Mk2 yet the exterior hasn't grown. What you notice on the move is improved damping and isolation: the new Alliance CMF-B platform that it shares with the Renault Clio and Nissan Juke, among others, helps here.

If you want a 4x4, our choice would be one of the last examples of the manually shifted mild hybrid, which will soon be replaced by a similarly capable automatic hybrid. More poke with front-wheel drive? Go for the 1.8-litre engine linked to Renault's novel self-shifting transmission that includes two electric motors, one to help drive the wheels while the other works as a starter-generator. The powertrain is smooth and feels torquey, even if its acceleration figures (0-62mph in 9.4sec) are nothing special.

The Duster's enticements to buyers will be seen as its low prices, decent standard equipment, practicality and economy. Yet, as with the previous models, Dacia has managed to maintain its singular, almost mystical persona as an intriguing and slightly off beat machine, the 'interesting' choice of someone who knows what matters in cars and what doesn't.

To have maintained such a subtle and elusive quality while changing so much on and under the skin is a mighty achievement.

There's a tendency for car industry watchers to view the rapid UK progress of leading Chinese marques as some kind of unearned overnight success, predicated on their ability to sell advanced cars at lower prices than anyone else.

There is an element of truth to this, not least the recognition decades ago by China's long-termist government that the global electrified car market would be a prime target for future domination and its unswerving efforts ever since to create the conditions for high-achieving companies to succeed. But the recent, increasingly impressive progress of Chinese car companies towards this lofty ambition - with Tesla-beating BYD nowadays most prominent of them all - disguises the years of sweat and toil, reverses, failures, mistakes and blind alleys strewn along the potholed path to success.

The experiences of Bono Ge, BYD's UK general manager - who in September last year proudly announced that the UK had become the biggest market for BYD products outside China - show what it takes. It was he who established BYD UK back in 2011, a point at which he cheerfully recalls that "he knew nothing about cars".

Last year, the company sold 50,000-odd cars here, around six times the 2024 volume. Ge is exaggeratedly careful to make no forecast for 2026 but, considering the half-dozen new models that are imminent (both for the mainstream BYD and Denza premium brands), an informed bystander might expect the company to be in six-figure territory by 2027 at the latest. At that stage it will have beaten Toyota, be directly threatening the likes of Hyundai and Kia and have Ford and BMW squarely in its sights.

Ge joined BYD straight from university in 2008 and got involved in its then mainstream business of batteries, buses and battery storage - until he moved to Europe with a taskforce of a dozen other young graduates recruited to help the company expand in foreign parts.

They succeeded with batteries and buses (Transport for London nowadays operates some 2800 BYD electric buses). But an initial attempt to establish an indifferent electric car called the E6 in partnership with the taxi company Green Tomato from 2013 was cancelled before it even got going.

Ge spent his time on energy storage systems around Europe but moved back to the UK when BYD decided to get serious about selling cars here again, because the market was getting more interested in electrification and it felt it had better products for the job.

The opening strategy was to land a variety of BYD cars at a test track in Spain, then invite dealers (especially dealer group chiefs) to come and sample them. The feedback was positive, although BYD people soon realised they had a lot to learn. Distribution and compliance would be complicated. European buyers found the cars too big in the rear and too short on boot space. They were bamboozled by smart digital features that the Chinese were used to. Adapted designs were needed.

Europe wasn't just one entity but up to 30 different sales regions; car specifications would have to vary. Demand was different according to nationality, too. Potential dealers wanted to know how BYD would build its brand.

"We were the biggest brand nobody had ever heard of," recalls Ge. "What were we going to do about it? We did some advertising on TV, but most of all we set about gathering as much data as we could find. We also tried to find and listen to good advice."

Ge says that people kept telling him the UK market was the most open in Europe, which is how it has worked out: "When we came, we noticed that a lot of Asian companies had established their HQs here, and the reasons were soon obvious. Buyers are open-minded, are interested in new stuff and are attracted by value for money. It isn't so straightforward in Germany and France."

BYD's UK expansion has been explosive over the past three years, but Ge feels quite a lot of things can be done better. Its dealer network of 130 sites needs to be expanded faster. Ge and his big boss, Stella Li, who runs the entire BYD operation outside China, wants 160 UK dealers in place by the end of this year.

"Still, one thing we've done quite well is to communicate the right story," says Ge. "People see us as a technology brand."

There are plenty of challenges to come. One of the meatiest is to launch the Denza premium brand: its Z9 GT, a Porsche Taycan rival, is nearing debut and there may well be two more models this year. Denza is Audi to BYD's Volkswagen, says Ge, so its own volume could be substantial. And then there's the Yangwang premium brand (he pronounces it Yongwong) in the frame after that, although it's not yet clear whether that marque will be seen here in 2026.

One thing is for sure: BYD and its sister brands are changing the UK's car landscape for good, like it or lump it.

I ask Ge the delicate question: what does he make of being cast as someone who is overturning the prospects of much-loved European marques, almost an enemy? He sighs. Clearly this isn't the first time the matter has been raised. "Today we live in a global market that's very dynamic," he says. "It changes shape all the time and you have to expect it. We can't go back 50 years: it wouldn't work. Besides, people in the UK are open-minded and they like a free market. Our products aren't the cheapest going, but they are great value. It's the customer's choice.