► New Dacia Hipster concept revealed
► Tall, boxy electric car boils down the essentials
► Brand is ‘working on’ a resulting production model
Dacia has made ‘the most Dacia’ thing ever, according to its design team. This is the new Hipster concept.
It’s a – let’s be honest – very quirky looking, boxy and ever-so-functional concept car designed to rethink the small car in the 21st century. And, according to many of the brand’s executives, it intends to push this vision forward into production.
The brand that’s all about the essentials has thought long and hard about today’s world of increasingly large, heavy and overpowered vehicles and has built something designed to seat four people in the smallest footprint it can.
That’s one word for it.
The Hipster concept is three metres long, 1.53 metres tall and 1.55 metres wide, and yet has space for four people – or two and a 500-litre luggage area. ‘It must be truly versatile,’ says head of product planning, Patrice Levy-Bencheton. It must be truly affordable and much more versatile than a two-seater that doesn’t require a driver’s licence. It also must be a car capable of covering everyday needs.’
Dacia says its own research surrounding the average journey using a car has influence the Hipster’s space requirements. According to its own data, most journeys have 1.6 people in the car and the average journey in Europe is around 21 miles.
A core focus of the brand has always been described as design-to-cost. It’s the mantra that its design team – led by head of design David Durand and advanced design chief Romain Gauvin – take to heart with every new model. It’s why the Bigster, for example, uses one powered strut for its automatic tailgate and keeps its rear lights outside of the tailgate area: to save cost.
But, for Hipster, there’s a new principle as well as the focus on cost: design-to-weight. Such obsession on shaving off grams here and there means the Hipster clocks in under 800kg – around 200kg lighter than a Spring. The logic here is that if the car is lighter, it needs fewer raw materials, less energy used to make it and less energy needed to propel it – making it more efficient.
There’s simplicity to every detail. The boxy shape, for example allows for vertical windows all around to maximise space. Doing so allows the door windows to slide rather than need to roll down. That saves space by allowing armrests and storage to be built into the door rather than take up extra space. There’s also a window fixed into the front half of the roof, which Durand says is designed to ‘optimise up high vision, when looking up to traffic lights, for example.’ Even the rear light units are simply bare LEDs without a fascia or lens cap on them, as the rear glass acts as its cover already.
The interior is boxy and brutalist, too, and filled with lightweight materials. It’s quite airy when you’re sat inside, with a chunky steering wheel and a small portrait screen that acts as a speedo inserted into the dashboard. The panel itself has a holder for your phone, and Dacia has filled the car with its YouClip points that allow you to add accessories like a portable Bluetooth speaker for music.
The seats are upholstered in lightweight mesh. ‘The inspiration was those modern office chairs you see,’ says Durand. ‘We’re saving the weight and thickness by not using foam and, when you’re sat in the rear, you have a much bigger knee radius.’
Going almost retro in some areas, details like the airbags are covered with a translucent surround – almost like the see-through material craze that was obsessed over in the 90s. ‘It’s to prove they are there,’ says Durand. And the part is easier to assemble because you just plug it into the dashboard.’
Even getting in and out of it means pulling a fabric strap, rather than using a proper door handle. ‘We’re always questioning,’ adds Durand. ‘It’s nicely designed and it costs €10. Yes, but what does it bring to the customer? Can we try removing it? We did this exercise everywhere, and that even included the door handles.’
It sounds more like a case of when, rather than if a production vehicle will arrive – albeit with the concept’s zanier details expected to be sanitised and toned down a little.
‘Within the Renault Group, we potentially have all necessary assets to make it happen,’ says Katrin Adt, the brand’s new CEO who took over from Denis Le Vot. ‘We’ll pay close attention to the evolution of technology and regulation in Europe. If the opportunity arises to produce it in series, we’ll strive to continue to write Dacia’s story by offering a 100 per cent electric solution at the most affordable price.’ The fact that the concept moves at speed only adds to the proof that it’s capable of leveraging those Renault Group parts quite easily.
Dacia has already teased a new A-segment car to replace the Spring and use the same architecture as the Renault Twingo. But when CAR asked Adt if the Hipster related to this, she told us it would be a separate vehicle from the Twingo-based city car.
Durand elaborates: ‘to be clear, we are really working on the hypothesis to put this on the street; this isn’t like the Manifesto concept that was just a white page design. The difficulty is choosing between the existing regulations.
‘You could go for L7 heavy quadricycle [like the Citroën Ami or the new-age Microlino], but you have to respect the 450kg weight limit without the battery pack, which is a challenge. You also have to make some choices about what to keep in the car.
‘Or you go for M1 [i.e. the vehicle classification of conventional passenger cars]. The risk there is that you have to embed all of the GSR2 (General Safety Regulations 2) ADAS, so you’d have a lot of electronics and screens, and the price would take you up to something like the Spring.’
Dacia, then, has a dilemma on its hands. We’ll have to wait and see what transpires.
Jake has been an automotive journalist since 2015, joining CAR as Staff Writer in 2017. With a decade of car news and reviews writing under his belt, he became CAR's Deputy News Editor in 2020 and then News Editor in 2025. Jake's day-to-day role includes co-ordinating CAR's news content across its print, digital and social media channels. When he's not out interviewing an executive, driving a new car for review or on a photoshoot for a CAR feature, he's usually found geeking out on the latest video game, buying yet another pair of wildly-coloured trainers or figuring out where he can put another car-shaped Lego set in his already-full house.
By Jake Groves
CAR's news editor; gamer, trainer freak and serial Lego-ist
