- The Dacia Hipster Concept is an EV that takes simplicity to the extreme.
- It doesn’t have an infotainment screen or speakers.
- Just three body parts are painted, and the seats are paper-thin: all in the name of bringing costs down.
This is the Dacia Hipster Concept. Brought to you by the Renault-owned Romanian automaker that made the first true cheap electric car in Europe, the Spring, it’s a masterclass in simplicity and great design.
For starters, it’s tiny. At 118 inches (3 meters) long, 60 inches (1.53 meters) high and 61 inches (1.55 meters) wide, it has roughly the same height as a Fiat 500e, but it’s 25 inches (63 centimeters) shorter and 5 inches (13 centimeters) narrower.
Photo by: Dacia
Despite the petite dimensions, Dacia says the two-door Hipster Concept has enough room inside for four adults, thanks to clever packaging and ditching pretty much anything that isn’t strictly necessary.
The automaker didn’t say what the wheelbase of the concept EV is, but it’s clear that the front and rear axles have been pushed as close to the edges as possible, leaving practically no overhangs. This maximizes interior space, and it should also lead to a go-kart-like driving experience.
Photo by: Dacia
There’s no excess here. There’s a single body color and just three painted parts: the front of the car and the side door entry elements. The taillights are not covered by a standalone glass panel because they’re located behind the tailgate window that opens separately from the lower tailgate. Traditional door handles have been replaced by textile straps. Inside, the paper-thin seats covered in a mesh fabric don’t take up much space. Also, there’s no infotainment screen and no speaker–the owner’s smartphone and a Bluetooth speaker can be used.
There’s a tiny, 2.4 cubic feet trunk, which is adequate for such a small city car. That said, the rear seat can be folded to increase the capacity to 17.6 cubic feet (500 liters). A neat touch is that the rear headrests are not attached to the seatback–instead, they swivel from the C-pillars, which allows the bench seat to fold flat. There’s also one pair of Isofix mounting points for a child seat in the back.
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Source: Dacia
All of this simplicity means the car is light. Dacia says it’s 20% lighter than the Spring city car, which tips the scales at 2,170 pounds (984 kilograms). This means it takes less energy to build the car and the car itself needs less energy to move under its own power. As a result, a smaller battery can be used to cater to the customers’ needs, which brings costs down even further.
Dacia claims that 94% of French drivers travel less than 25 miles (40 kilometers) every day. While the automaker didn’t say how far the Hipster Concept can drive on a full charge, adding that statistic in the press release is a giveaway that the series model won’t break any range records.
And this funky, refreshing concept will eventually transform into a production model. It might not look like this when it arrives in European showrooms, but it shows that Dacia is serious about keeping costs down. It did it with the first-generation Spring city EV, and it will most likely kick things up a notch with the second-gen model, which is expected to debut next year, underpinned by the same platform that powers the delightfully retro Twingo EV.
