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10 Cheapest Electric Cars 2026 – Budget EVs from £12k! | What Car?

Think you require deep pockets to purchase a new electrical car? Reconsider! In 2026, the most inexpensive EVs in the UK are some of the most budget friendly brand-new cars and trucks full-stop. We're counting down the Top 10 most inexpensive electric cars you can purchase right now, with costs starting from just over ₤ 12,000!

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A new age of budget-friendly electric cars has actually gotten here. In this video, we go through the 10 most inexpensive correct EVs (no quadricycles here!) on sale today. We have actually factored in maker rewards, federal government EV grants, and broken down the month-to-month PCP financing expenses so you understand exactly what you'll be paying.

From the retro-styled Renault 5 and Fiat 500e to the extremely cheap Leapmotor T03 and Dacia Spring, we expose which budget EVs are genuine bargains and those that need some serious compromises.

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#CheapestElectricCars #CheapEVs #AffordableEVs #DaciaSpring #byd #Renault 5 #ElectricCars 2026 #WhatCar #CarFinance #EVs

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Comments

33 responses to “10 Cheapest Electric Cars 2026 – Budget EVs from £12k! | What Car?”

  1. @alanwayte1688 Avatar
    @alanwayte1688

    Why blur the cars at the beginning, annoying

    Reply
  2. @mikadavies660 Avatar
    @mikadavies660

    Biggest problem with the EC-3 Urban, is that the slow charging will strongly affect it’s residual value.

    Reply
  3. @mikadavies660 Avatar
    @mikadavies660

    I have seen plenty of Dacia Springs on the motorway… They keep up okay.

    Reply
    1. @Peter.R.M. Avatar
      @Peter.R.M.

      They do indeed, overtaking is no problem, its no different to driving any other small car on a motorway.

      Reply
  4. @Peter.R.M. Avatar
    @Peter.R.M.

    I think you are being a bit harsh on the Spring. I only do a limited millage with my Spring and mainly charge at home, its perfectly adequate as a local run around, its very easy to drive, its very nippy and you soon get used to the handling. It only costs about £2.50 per charge for around 125 miles of driving and if you look for the Expression 65, last years model, you can still get a brand new, heavily discounted, one for under £10K.

    Reply
    1. @GregHarveyUK Avatar
      @GregHarveyUK

      I agree they’re too harsh. BUT… I did the whole tour with my mother-in-law and we tested Fiat 500e (awful), Spring (showed its price point), electric Twingo (don’t think that ever reached the UK and it’s discontinued now, but brilliant – no fast charge, but 22kW type 2 charging meant you could fill it for free at the supermarket while doing an hour’s shopping) and second gen VW e-Up. Now, only the Spring and Twingo were new, but my mother-in-law opted for the VW, because being a VW hatch it felt really solid on the road and handled really nicely. And therein lies the Spring’s problem, I think. It’s hard to choose a new Spring over a 2 year old Renault 5 when they’re the same price. That said, 2 year old Springs are an absolute bargain!

      Reply
    2. @markgt894 Avatar
      @markgt894

      Problem is these cheap battery cars are clogging up the roads

      Reply
  5. @TruthTeller-100 Avatar
    @TruthTeller-100

    Why quote the lying offical ranges? Real world range in winter at 70mph, about half of that!

    Reply
    1. @imbethondion4572 Avatar
      @imbethondion4572

      I have a Leapmotor T03. I did 125 miles on A roads on a single charge in January and still had 22 miles of range showing when I got home. That’s a bit less than the official range but not massively so. Some big electric SUVs can have quite major range issues in winter, but very few are so bad that they can only do half the official range.

      Reply
  6. @cabottaxi Avatar
    @cabottaxi

    Buying one of these cars outright is like throwing your cash down the drain. I’d only ever lease one and not get one on a PCP.

    Reply
    1. @jamesecroucher Avatar
      @jamesecroucher

      Might be cheap second hand ?

      Reply
    2. @capnkirk5528 Avatar
      @capnkirk5528

      Buying ANY CAR is like throwing your cash down a drain.
      Also, you are letting short term exceptions caused by Covid, politics and the auto disruption interfere with you thinking. Those disruptions are short-term (Covid is the shortest, the others are ten to twenty years). You might think TWENTY YEARS is a long time; it isn’t – it’s essentially 1-2 “cycles” of new models in “normal” times. And then incentives mess with the economics as manufacturers try to cheat on the incentives and keep as much of the government’s (ie your tax dollars) for themselves as they can … and they are often bordering on dishonest when they do so.
      Better incentives are pure tax breaks – no VAT or reduced VAT on EVs and / or charging makes much more sense than cash handouts.

      Reply
    3. @TheBermudabob68 Avatar
      @TheBermudabob68

      Yeah, I was really stupid paying £275 a month for the car and and £40 for electricity instead of the £280 a month for the car and £330 for diesel that I was doing previously…

      Reply
    4. @Ijusthopeitsquick Avatar
      @Ijusthopeitsquick

      You really need to do some maths. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The cost of buying a car is its depreciation. The cost of leasing a car is also its depreciation, plus a little profit for the finance company that administers the lease agreement. Do the math.

      Reply
    5. @imbethondion4572 Avatar
      @imbethondion4572

      @Ijusthopeitsquick That’s generally true, but there are some lease deals out there at the moment that cost significantly less than the depreciation over the lease period. Manufacturers are desperate to move stock and they are offering some ridiculously cheap deals.

      Reply
  7. @MrKlawUK Avatar
    @MrKlawUK

    this is great news if only to a least dim the noise around EVs being so expensive. The cheapest two new cars on sale are both EVs which is great, and several are on par price-wise with their ICE equivalent

    Reply
  8. @whatcar Avatar
    @whatcar

    We’ve counted down the 10 cheapest EVs you can buy brand new in the UK right now. Some offer genuine value, while others require some serious compromises. Out of the budget options in our video, where is your money going? 👇

    Reply
    1. @Trifusion1 Avatar
      @Trifusion1

      Thank you for showing the key EV stats for each car, very useful!

      Reply
  9. @gasgas8752 Avatar
    @gasgas8752

    Toaster 💩👎

    Reply
  10. @davidetozzi1647 Avatar
    @davidetozzi1647

    more vids like this please

    Reply
  11. @jamesecroucher Avatar
    @jamesecroucher

    Dashboard plastics, dashboard plastics…I’ve never touched, poked, caressed or scratched the dashboard for the sake of it. Ever!

    Reply
    1. @Trifusion1 Avatar
      @Trifusion1

      The first time I sat in a jag I was genuinely confused why anyone would ever need a leather covered dashboard.

      Reply
    2. @jamesecroucher Avatar
      @jamesecroucher

      @Trifusion1 😂

      Reply
  12. @tommymann1783 Avatar
    @tommymann1783

    The bigger Battery Micra DOES attract the higher government grant as of last week

    Reply
  13. @ARealSotonMush Avatar
    @ARealSotonMush

    I like the BYD

    Reply
  14. @andrisromanovskis9363 Avatar
    @andrisromanovskis9363

    Dačia, or as you pronounce it “Deisia”, is one crap of a car. I need a lot of brainpower to call it “good”, not to mention “best”, and I don’t have that much of brainpower.

    Reply
  15. @echolocateyourcalling Avatar
    @echolocateyourcalling

    Not paying 21999 for micra

    Reply
  16. @lewismcnicholas2631 Avatar
    @lewismcnicholas2631

    It would be worth mentioning that the Dacia spring has just been updated with improvements to the suspension so it is better than the one you refer to in your test from last year

    Reply
  17. @Scouser22 Avatar
    @Scouser22

    A used 3-4 year old Tesla is also an excellent buy. Loads of these popping up near me.

    Reply
  18. @RupertBear412 Avatar
    @RupertBear412

    looks to me that the EV manufacturers are having to seriously drop prices to sell their stock, especially PCP deals, that is the hidden story here, not price parity but price reality of hitting the limits of the EV market

    Reply
  19. @martinbuddery1345 Avatar
    @martinbuddery1345

    No MG4 Urban???

    Reply
    1. @whatcar Avatar
      @whatcar

      It’s priced from £21,995 (after a guaranteed £1500 saving from MG). Not quite ‘cheap’ enough to be in the top 10, but still fantastic value – especially given its size.

      Reply
  20. @imbethondion4572 Avatar
    @imbethondion4572

    I bought a T03. I test drove the Spring but found it a bit too compromised. The Dolphin Surf was a very close second to the T03 and in fact BYD have dropped the price since then which would perhaps have tipped the balance. The others are all significantly more expensive.

    Reply

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