The BYD Dolphin Surf leads: €20,651 for 322 km WLTP, or €64.13 per kilometre of range, the best entry point on the Belgian catalogue. The Dacia Spring follows at €66.62, but its next generation is on the way. The ranking is built on the price per claimed kilometre, not on driving feel or charging.
Score out of 100: 100 × (price per WLTP kilometre of the best model ÷ price per WLTP kilometre of the model), Belgian list price including VAT of the version cheapest per kilometre. Prices dated December 2025 to October 2026
Our top 7, ranked by score out of 100: 100 × (price per wltp kilometre of the best model ÷ price per wltp kilometre of the model), belgian list price including vat of the version cheapest per kilometre. prices dated december 2025 to october 2026. Indicative figures, updated October 2026.
Indicative scores and figures (Belgian market), entry version without options. List or used price to be verified at the dealer before purchase. No model pays to be listed or ranked higher.
The BYD Dolphin Surf, at €64.13.
We divide the Belgian list price including VAT of the cheapest version by the claimed WLTP range. The Dolphin Surf wins with €20,651 for 322 km. The Dacia Spring is second at €66.62, the Hyundai Inster third at €69.57 with the longest range in the ranking, 327 km. Between first and last, the Renault 5, the gap reaches €25.93 per kilometre: for equal range, the 5 costs 40% more per kilometre than the Dolphin Surf.
This is not a best-car ranking. It is the cheapest entry point for driving far, and it deliberately favours models whose battery is large compared with the price.
The prices come from four sources of different dates, and that is the main limit of this ranking.
Four models (Dolphin Surf, Spring, Inster, Grande Panda) rest on the Touring price survey of 5 January 2026, nine months before the writing date. The Twingo comes from a Belgian report of December 2025. Only the Citroën price list of 1 July 2026 and the Renault offers page, consulted on 19 October 2026, are recent. Manufacturers adjust prices several times a year: any amount above should be reconfirmed at a dealer before deciding.
WLTP range is a laboratory figure. In town it is more favourable than on the motorway, and town is exactly where a city car lives. To translate it into real trips, see our home-charging guide.
Sources also differ for the same model: the Test-Achats reference price for the Inster (€24,849) is €2,100 above Touring’s. We rank on the cheapest amount recorded and say so, rather than picking one at random.
Perhaps not.
The second generation was unveiled on 8 September 2026 with a 27.5 kWh usable LFP battery and up to 250 km WLTP. The announced European price is €17,900, and Dacia Belux promises every version will stay under €20,000 in Belgium. No Belgian price was published at the date of this ranking.
The arithmetic is simple. At 250 km, the new Spring beats the Dolphin Surf per kilometre only if it costs less than €16,033, which looks unlikely since the European price is already €17,900. It would therefore fall behind the Dolphin Surf, but stay ahead of the Twingo as long as its price stays under €18,536. The current generation at €14,990 is only found as old stock: if a dealer still has one, its rank is the one in the table, but its Euro NCAP safety rating remains the poor 2023 one.
Yes, almost always.
The 30.3 kWh YOU costs €20,280 and shows 205 km WLTP. The YOU Comfort Range at 44.2 kWh gross costs €23,780 and shows 311 km. The extra 106 km cost €3,500, which is €33.02 per kilometre, less than half the per-kilometre price of the entry version (€98.93). For a driver with no home charger, 205 km WLTP leaves little margin in winter. More expensive trims also exist (PLUS at €25,980, MAX at €28,280) that add no range.
It is the one rule in this ranking that turns upside down: on a city car, the entry version is rarely the right one, because the kilometres added by the big battery cost three times less than the entry ones.
Three tiers, from €15,000 to €24,000.
Under €20,000: the Dacia Spring at €14,990 (225 km) and the Renault Twingo at €19,500 (263 km), which becomes €19,990 with fast charging. Between €20,000 and €23,000: the BYD Dolphin Surf at €20,651 (322 km), the Hyundai Inster at €22,749 (327 km) and the Fiat Grande Panda at €22,990 (320 km). Above €23,000: the Citroën ë-C3 YOU Comfort Range at €23,780 and the Renault 5 at €28,100.
The most profitable jump is at €20,651: for €1,151 more than the Twingo Evolution at €19,500, the Dolphin Surf offers 59 extra WLTP kilometres, or €19.51 per added kilometre.
For a private buyer, almost. For a company car, no.
The list price is identical in all three Regions, but the registration tax and the annual road tax of an electric car depend on the Region of registration, and their amount, very low for electric cars, changes from one Region to another. Read our article on the benefit in kind of an electric car before signing a company-car contract: at 4% of list value with a floor of €1,690 a year, the seven models in this ranking all sit at the floor.
To compare the whole cost of ownership of an electric city car, you must add insurance, which varies strongly with power and driver age, and charging.
The BYD Dolphin Surf if you want the cheapest range, the Hyundai Inster if you want the best documented safety rating.
Mistakes to avoid: signing for an entry version at 205 km WLTP if you have no home charger, and buying a current-generation Dacia Spring without reading its safety rating.
Sources: Touring, affordable electric cars price survey of 5 January 2026; Citroën Belgium price list of 1 July 2026; Renault Belgium offers page consulted on 19 October 2026; NewMobility, 16 December 2025 (Twingo) and 8 September 2026 (Spring); Test-Achats and Euro NCAP 2025 (Inster); Fiat via Italpassion for the French price of the Grande Panda. None of these seven models has been road-tested in house.
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