Dacia has channeled the spirit of the original Mini, Fiat 500 and Volkswagen Beetle for a new sub-800kg, four-seat city car concept designed to dramatically reduce the price of EVs.
Called the Hipster, it measures just 1.55m wide, 1.53m high and 3m long – shorter than any car currently on sale – yet still has four full-sized seats and up to 500 litres of load space with the rears folded - enough to accommodate a washing machine.
Dacia’s aim is to “enable as many people as possible to access essential mobility” in the face of rising costs brought about by regulation and electrification, with the Hipster envisaging a model that undercuts even the £15k Spring EV - one of Europe’s cheapest full-sized cars.
Hipster previews a new era of people's cars
Tightly packaged and as minimally specified as possible, the Hipster showcases the sort of EV that manufacturers could produce for the new ‘E-car' category of affordable small cars that’s set to be introduced in Europe – although it had been designed before the first details of this new class emerged.
The exact framework of this new category – which is yet to be officially greenlit – remains to be determined, but Dacia’s sales and marketing boss Frank Marotte said the Hipster shows what could be possible if manufacturers were given more regulatory freedom to build small, affordable cars profitably.
"Fundamentally, I think that the European Commission and all the stakeholders and most of the OEMs are starting to recognise that, especially for small cars, we've [gone] too far in terms of certain types of regulations - and the actual usage by customers is completely disconnected from from the latest active safety regulation that has been put in place,” he told Autocar.
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Reminds me of that well known children's building brick stuff, from the side it reminds me of a Landrover or a discovery,the interior looks a bit too busy for me.
This model sounds very interesting and where car manufacturers should be heading if they truly want their EVs to appeal to the general public, rather than churning out countless £60k+ EV SUVs with 400 bhp. Well done Dacia.
But to those saying a range of 150 miles is acceptable for such a car - no it isn't. If we're expected to pay £15k for this car it should be able to provide a similar level of transport as a £15k petrol car. A Hyundai i10 can cover around 400 miles on a tank of fuel and happily handle high mileages over a mixture of roads without torturing the driver or passengers.
If I have to go through the hassle of finding a working charger, queue up for it then wait for ages whilst the battery takes a charge, then do all that 3 times over for the same journey as the i10 can handle with a single tank of petrol, that is unacceptable for what I need a second car for, and probably many other people.
£15,000 is a lot to pay for a one trick pony, and whilst expecting to achieve 400 miles from a single charge for a car like this is unreasonable with current technology and costs, a range of at least 250 miles is completely justified.
...'Churning out countless £60k + EV SUVs with 400 bhp'..... no they're not, there's plenty of sub 25k 400 bhp BEV's being 'churned out', you've just got your eyes shut.
Rest of the your comments are pretty anti BEV rubbish too.
Every statistic shows these cars are used to move around the town/village, maybe to the adjacent villages and towns. 150 miles, call it 100 miles realistically, is still plenty for a lot of people. The is a huge market for those who live in a house and only drive short distances around. They'll almost never need to charge away from home.
The average commute distance in the UK is 20 miles/day.
Wow indeed! This is way more innovative, thought provoking and interesting, than all of the usual hypercar willy waving nonsense.
Even if they could deliver this product to market as is, my concern would be whether the current pampered typical driver could actually bring themselves to part money for a bare bones car such as this.
I hope it's not too late cos I think it's fantastic!