Dacia does not have the best image among car brands in terms of safety. The new Sandero supermini and Logan subcompact sedan received only two stars in crash tests conducted by Euro NCAP. The ratings are even worse for the Spring electric city car and the new Jogger seven-seater family buggy as these two models only get one star. Are company bosses worried about this outcome? Absolutely not.
One of the main reasons the Dacia models did poorly in crash tests has to do with the lack of active safety technology. The vehicle has been engineered without features like lane keep assist to keep prices low, but also because the Romanian brand knows a lot of people will turn off this kind of technology.
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In an interview with upper teeth magazine, automaker CEO Denis Le Vot explains:
“A lot of people turn off keep assist lanes. You do that because you’re human and you assess the situation so you turn off the technology. What we do is we don’t sell it to you. We know that people turning off lanes still helps, so why do we sell it?”
Don’t think that Dacia is a death trap because it hardly is. When Euro NCAP tested Sandero and Logan last year, it explained the lack of an active safety system prevented the car from getting a much better rating: “honorable crash protection, with performance that would have made the car a four-star performer if it weren’t for its flaws elsewhere.” “
Dacia products are still refreshing and inexpensive as you can take home the Sandero hatchback in the model’s country of origin starting at €13,650. Even the much larger Jogger costs only €15,890 while the Duster SUV is a few hundred euros more affordable. To keep prices low, Renault’s budget arm will stick with combustion engines as long as possible, beyond 2030. In fact, it wants to own gasoline cars until 2025 when sales of new vehicles emit CO.2 would be effectively prohibited.
Many people still see Dacia as a small brand, but it is Europe’s third best-selling carmaker this year so far in terms of private buyers, according to European Automotive News. Not only that, but AN citing industry lobby group ACEA as saying automakers from Eastern Europe had increased their market share in the first half of 2022 from 2.9 to 4 percent compared to the same period last year.
With the Jogger now on sale and the bigger SUV over the Duster arriving in 2025, the future looks promising.
