Can you recoup the extra cost of a Dacia Jogger Hybrid?

The story is well known. Dacia is the brand par excellence for people who want to limit their car to the core. No frills, and the manufacturer accommodates this by supplying a lot of tin for – relatively – little money, coupled with standard equipment that is comfortable but sober. The brand relies on parent company Renault for technology and the Jogger is no exception. It excels in space and is even available as a seven-seater if desired, where you don’t even feel bad in the back row. Although it has the lines of a station wagon, underneath that sheet metal it is more of a classic MPV.

But this story is not about the exterior, nor about the spacious interior. On the one hand, it concerns the part under the hood, the drivetrain, and on the other hand, the thing in your back pocket: your wallet. Because the Jogger Hybrid is considerably more expensive than the petrol version. But Dacia promises better fuel consumption and you may wonder whether investing more when purchasing will pay off later. Because driving Dacia is a matter of money, we are going to raise a tree about it.

Trees

Speaking of trees: the addition of a hybrid to the range is primarily an emissions issue. According to the official WLTP measurements, this Jogger is slightly cleaner than the TCe 110 with which we compare it here. CO2 emissions are 19 grams lower at 110 g/km. An A label is the result, compared to a B label for the TCe 110.

Let’s take a closer look at those powertrains. The silver-gray car in the photos is a TCe 110, and it has a three-cylinder petrol engine with a six-speed manual gearbox. The 999cc engine with turbo produces 110 hp. You will not find this TCe 110 in a Renault, but it is related to the TCe 90 that serves in the Clio. This TCe 110 fits the Jogger perfectly. It has a lot of pulling power at low revs, is not particularly noisy and the gearbox shifts just fine.

The dark gray Jogger in the photos is the Hybrid 140. Its powertrain also comes from Renault and can be found in the Clio and the Captur, as well as in the Juke from Nissan. It is a technical tour de force with two electric motors: a small one and a large one. The 1.6-liter petrol engine actually serves as a generator. You always drive away electrically and only at higher speeds does the power of the petrol engine go directly to the wheels. Two electric gearboxes and four gears for the petrol engine work together as an eight-speed automatic transmission and send the combined power to the front wheels.

Dacia Jogger

The Jogger is not the car for sporty driving, and it is precisely that calm approach that brings out the best in the hybrid drivetrain. Lots of torque at the bottom, and the four-cylinder runs nice and quietly. If you keep an eye on the EV light on the dashboard, you will see that it often lights up, which means that you are driving electrically. You can read how many kilometers you have traveled electrically via the on-board computer. After a week of steering, we arrived at 40 percent EV kilometers. This is reflected in the consumption, but more about that later.

As said, this story is a money-making affair. You drive a Dacia because you want to keep the costs of driving low. The hybrid Jogger puts you in a huge split, unfortunately, because it is considerably more expensive to purchase than the TCe 110. With the same equipment (Extreme 7-person) the difference is € 3,550. Let’s take a beermat and compare the expenses.

Costs

We assume the tested Extreme versions, with a driver aged 47, living at our editorial address in Hoofddorp and an annual mileage of 15,000. If you look at the fixed costs, excluding depreciation, the picture is as follows.

The tax authorities charge € 176 extra per year (North Holland) in MRB for the Jogger Hybrid, because it is 200 kg heavier. Car insurance is also more expensive. We have colleagues from ­Independer have a calculation made with ten claim-free years. For all-risk insurance, the annual premium is €508 for the TCe 110 and €633 for the Hybrid 140, a difference of 125 euros. For maintenance (services, tires) we use the dates that the Autoweek.nl car cost calculation gives us. And that is

€629 (TCe 110) versus €635 (Hybrid 140), an almost negligible difference. The fixed costs for the Hybrid 140 are € 307 higher on an annual basis than for the TCe.

Dacia Jogger

The revenues

Only the fuel consumption can make up for all the additional costs of the Hybrid 140. It is precisely in this area that the hybrid shows its best side. We achieve a test consumption of 5.1 liters per 100 km and in our calculation example of 15,000 kilometers per year that would mean that we need a total of 751.5 liters of petrol in a year. With the current price of € 2.15 per liter, you spend € 1,615.72 on fuel annually. The TCe 110 is certainly not a drinking boat with an average consumption of 6.7 liters per 100 km. He drinks 1,005 liters per year, and that costs you € 2,160.75. That’s almost €550 more. All in all, the Hybrid 140 is and will remain a bit more expensive – although the optimist will claim that you will break even within seven years.

But wait a minute. More and more private individuals are not buying their car, but leasing it privately. How do you come up with the costs? These are all included in the lease price, except for fuel. In the comparator on the AutoWeek site we enter the same as above. In other words, a five-year contract with a maximum of 15,000 km per year. This amounts to €513 per month (via ANWB) for the Jogger TCe 110 Extreme 7-person, and €573 per month for the Hybrid 140 Extreme 7-person (also via ANWB). A difference of €720 per year, of which €170 remains after you settle fuel costs.

And so, which Dacia Jogger?

Private leasers actually have it the easiest. For half a euro extra per day they drive the Hybrid. That shouldn’t be a difficult choice: then you go for the hybrid, which drives just a little better.

Private buyers have a bigger gap to bridge. We can’t look into everyone’s wallets, but we can imagine that the true Dacia spirit emerges. Then the choice will probably be the TCe 110. Those who do not necessarily want seven seats can save another € 1,000 by ordering the five-seater. Because that possibility is there. And then you get a lot of car for your money.