Leapmotor C10 review

Up ahead

How much does a Leapmotor C10 cost?
What is the Leapmotor C10's exterior like?
What is the Leapmotor C10 like inside?
Is the Leapmotor C10 good to drive?
What safety features does the Leapmotor C10 have?
How does the Leapmotor C10 compare?
Should I buy a Leapmotor C10?

f you’ve never heard of Leapmotor then you’re likely in good company as it’s still largely unknown in Australia, but the electric vehicle brand recently launched its C10 SUV here and is poised to release additional models before the year’s end.

Leapmotor is a very young car maker, having been founded just 10 years ago by Chinese electrical engineer Zhu Jiangming.

Among the brand’s claims to fame is its high levels of vertical integration, which sees more than 70% of the value of its vehicles produced in-house, including its own EV batteries and integrated electric vehicle architecture. That’s unusual in the broader automotive industry where outsourcing of components is commonplace.

The company released its first vehicle the SO1 in China in 2019. Since then, Leapmotor has released four additional models in rapid succession, with the C10 being its fifth new model in five years.

To date, Leapmotor has produced only about 500,000 cars but the company is not short on ambition and aims to achieve that many sales outside China by 2030.

The C10 is Leapmotor’s first car engineered for the global market and is currently on sale in 13 countries, including China and several European countries, with expansion planned for this year to South Africa, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific.

Unlike some rival Chinese brands that are going it alone on the Australian market, Leapmotor is backed by Stellantis, the international automotive conglomerate comprising such brands as Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Jeep.

Stellantis paid A$2.5 billion in late 2023 for a 20% stake in Leapmotor and has the exclusive right to sell and manufacture Leapmotor vehicles outside China under the auspices of the Leapmotor International joint venture.

This means the new brand starts with the backing of 12 established sales, service and parts dealerships in mainland Australia, including two in south-east Qld, with the new venture aiming to double that by the end of 2025.

How much does a Leapmotor C10 cost?

Leapmotor’s first Australian vehicle, the C10 is available in two well-equipped variants, the Style ($45,888 at the time of writing) and Design ($49,888 at the time of writing), both featuring the same 69.9kWh battery and single electric motor driving the front wheels with outputs of 160kW/320Nm.

The battery is good for a range of up to 420km, based on the WLTP cycle.

Standard comfort features of both C10 variants include a 360-degree camera with dynamic guidelines, dual-zone automatic climate control with energy-efficient heat pump, electrically adjustable front seats, 12-speaker surround audio system, fixed glass panoramic glass roof with electric sunshade, and wireless phone charging.

On the infotainment front, both variants get a 10.25-inch LCD driver instrument cluster, 14.6-inch high-resolution touch screen with native navigation, Wi-Fi and 4G, plus over-the-air (OTA) software updates.

Over and above this, the Design adds silicone leather seats, heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated front seats, power tailgate, air quality monitor, multi-colour interior ambient lighting, 20-inch alloy wheels, rear privacy glass, and an LED rear light bar with lighting animation.

What is the Leapmotor C10's exterior like?

Leapmotor says the C10’s styling, which is characterised by soft organics curves, communicates stability and a strong, reliable and safe vehicle. It’s certainly not as dramatic or eye-catching as some of its contemporary EV rivals from China, such as Zeekr and BYD, but it may come across as more family-friendly than these models, which is clearly the goal.

Notable design elements include LED headlights and tail lights, flush-fit door handles, a shark-fin antenna and roof rails, and either 18- or 20-inch alloy wheels depending on the variant.

What is the Leapmotor C10 like inside?

The interior design is of the minimalist style favoured by many modern EVs. It’s nicely finished, with generous application of soft-touch Sileather (silicon leather), a durable animal-free vegan leather.

Sileather is claimed to have low volatile organic compound emissions, plus good stain and ageing resistance. The material is used throughout the C10 interior on the dash and high-touch areas such as seats, armrests, steering wheel and door panels.

The flat-bottom steering wheel is also clad in Sileather and equipped with a pair of five-way scroll buttons that control various functions including side view mirror adjustment. There’s not much in the way of labelling on these buttons, so it takes a while to work out what they do.

The same is true of the operation of the main touchscreen, which follows the trend of placing functions formerly controlled by a button or a switch into the screen. This includes oft-used functions like opening the tailgate or adjusting the exterior mirrors. You do eventually work out how to operate most things but it’s not without frustration.

The screen quality is excellent, however, and there’s a variety of available views including a 360-degree and overhead view which is handy when parking.

Absent from the otherwise extensive list of standard features is Apple Car and Android Auto, although these features can be accessed using the car’s smartphone mirroring function.

The C10 does, however, feature a selection of embedded Apps, including Amazon Music, Spotify, Deezer, and TuneIn, which run independently of your smartphone.

The embedded native navigation system uses ‘Here’ maps and is designed to provide real-time information on how far you can drive with the available battery charge, something not available when using smartphone navigation

The vehicle also comes with three years of free connected services at purchase which includes map updates, music and video streaming, but there was no info available at launch on what the subscription plans will cost after the first three years.

The company says features like navigation, voice control and OTA will continue to run independently of any Connected Services data subscription.

Other notable C10 inclusions are a 12-speaker stereo, voice control using the 'Hi Leapmotor' function and an embedded SIM that means passengers can link to the car as a Wi-Fi hotspot. The C10 is also V2L (vehicle-to-load) capable but there’s no adapter supplied.

The front seats are nicely shaped and impressively soft and comfortable, featuring multi-way electric adjustment plus heating and cooling functions on eth Style. The seats can be reclined fully to meet the squab of the rear seat, creating a bed for weary travellers.

Stretching the width of the dash is a ‘hidden’ electric air-vent system and a multi-mode ambient lighting strip that’s exclusive to the Design variant and that ‘dances’ in time to music tracks. Overhead is a large 2.1 sq.m panoramic fixed glass sunroof with an electric sunshade.

There’s plenty of storage spaces, with Leapmotor claiming 10 each in the front and rear and six in the cargo bay, including a lidded centre console, and a hollow cubby area between the console and dash.

A pair of cup holders flank the console-mounted wireless phone charging pad and there are two more behind the centre console for rear-seat passengers. Device charging options include USB-A and USB-C plugs in both the front and rear.

Passengers in either row are afforded generous headroom and legroom but the middle pew of the rear seat is not especially comfortable, thanks to the presence of a fold-down centre armrest.

The luggage bay offers a generous 581 litres plus a sub-floor area to store the two supplied charging cables. Cargo capacity can be expanded to 1,410 litres with the 70:30 split-fold second row folded. Multiple seat-folding options offer plenty of versatility but there’s no front trunk as found on rivals such as the Tesla Model Y.

There are five exterior and two interior colours, including the terracotta-coloured Criollo Brown fitted to our test car which may not be to everyone’s tastes, in which case a darker Midnight Aurora is the alternative hue.

Is the Leapmotor C10 good to drive?

Starting and driving the Leapmotor C10 will be an unusual experience for anyone not familiar with the wonderful and sometimes weird world of EVs. There’s no start-stop button and no traditional fob-style remote, instead you lock and unlock the C10 by tapping an NFC (near field communication) card against the driver’s side rearview mirror. You then place the card on the centre console’s wireless charging pad before selecting Drive via a stubby lever on the steering column.

Using the NFC card in this way is a bit clunky but most owners will opt to install the relevant Leapmotor App on their Bluetooth-compatible smartphone to allow automatic unlocking when close to the vehicle and automatic locking when moving away. The system also automatically locks if Bluetooth disconnects from the vehicle.

The app allows owners to schedule battery charging, pre-heat the battery for more efficient charging in cold climates, remotely control the air-conditioning system to warm or cool the interior before driving, check on vehicle status including remaining energy and cruising range, find the vehicle location, and check for faults.

Other app-enabled convenience features include remotely controlling the windows, tailgate, electric sunshade, steering wheel heating, and seat heating and ventilation.

There’s no need to manually push or pull a park brake lever or button, with the function automatically engaging when you select Park on the end of the gear selection lever. That same lever also controls the cruise control function, with speed set by simply tapping down once on the lever when you reach your desired speed.

The lack of physical buttons creates a clean, minimalist look but also leads to some frustrations with working out how to access and operate simple functions such as adjusting the rear-view mirrors.

Under the C10’s skin is a 69.9kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, powering a single rear-mounted electric motor delivering outputs of 160kW/320Nm. The combination is good for claimed 0-100km/h acceleration of 7.3 seconds and up to 420km of range on the WLTP cycle.

This means that by dual-motor EV standards the C10 is not especially quick or sporty, but its acceleration is still superior to many mainstream ICE-powered SUVs, and on a par with Toyota’s RAV4 hybrid.

There are four selectable drive modes including Eco, Comfort, Sport and Custom. Performance in Sport is strong without being exceptional, with the C10 accelerating smoothly, strongly and quietly both from a standstill and when overtaking.

The interior is quiet and refined at road speeds with minimal noise entering the cabin, except for some tyre noise on coarse surfaces.

Dynamically, the C10 doesn’t feel to have any overtly sporty pretensions despite boasting suspension tuned by Maserati engineers. Ride and handling are calibrated more towards ride comfort than dynamics, which is as it should be for a family-oriented SUV.

Open-road ride and handling is perfectly safe and acceptable and more people are likely to appreciate the fact it rides smoothly and quietly over urban speed humps than will rue the fact it doesn’t corner like a BMW.

The brake pedal feel is soft and lacking in positive pedal feel, but despite this we had no issues with braking performance.Charging speed is not exactly state-of-the-art, being based as it is on 400V as opposed to 800V architecture which limits DC charging to 86kW.

That’s relatively show when compared with the Tesla Model Y which can charge at up to 250kW, but a Leapmotor spokesperson correctly observed that this is nonetheless suitable for around two-thirds of currently available Australian fast chargers.

What safety features does the Leapmotor C10 have?

The Leapmotor C10 boasts a five-star ANCAP rating and comes with a comprehensive array of active and passive safety features.

It features an array of sensors and cameras that enable 17 different advanced driver assist systems. While that all sounds very impressive, the reality is that the way these systems work is not.

Like many Chinese-made cars we‘ve driven, the C10’s Achilles heel is its overly interventionist ADAS systems which constantly hector the driver when there’s no danger and you’re driving safely.

It may not rank as the worst car we’ve driven in this regard, but the preponderance of unnecessary warning beeps, chimes, alerts and interventions are more distractng than helpful.

It is possible to drill down into the vehicle’s sub-menus to shut off the various driver, speed and lane monitoring systems, but the process is tedious and they default to ‘on’ whenever the vehicle is switched off.

The C10's ADAS shortcomings go beyond unnecessary warning sounds to virtually constant feedback through the steering wheel as the system tries to steer you away from lane markings that you are not in any danger of crossing.

Of greater concern is the fact we experienced several instances of borderline dangerous ADAS interventions, including sudden brake applications at highway speeds when there was no danger perceived or imminent.

In one case this appeared to be due to the safety cameras picking up an approaching overpass and deciding it was a threat, and on another occasion when traveling with cruise control on in the middle of a three-lane freeway it detected the cars either side and braked suddenly.

This isn’t good enough and could contribute to a high-speed collision, so needs to be rectified. There are plenty of cars out there with the same technologies that don’t react this way and Leapmotor needs to work on improving and refining these systems.

How does the Leapmotor C10 compare?

Dimensionally, the Leapmotor C10 is very close to the Tesla Model Y against which it was obviously benchmarked during development. This translates to 4,739mm long, 1,900mm wide, and 1,680mm high, and riding on a 2,825mm wheelbase.

But the C10’s 0-100km/ acceleration of 7.3 seconds and up to 420km of range are hardly going to frighten Tesla, with the MY25 Model Y RWD covering the 0-100km/h dash in 5.9 seconds and boasting a range of 466km (WLTP).

As such, the C10 is better compared with the likes of the Kia EV5, and Chinese rivals such as the Deepal S07 and Geely EX5. The similarly sized and more affordably priced Geely EX5 boasts a 60.22kWh LFP battery, comparable outputs of 160kW/320Nm, and a WLTP range of 430km.

Should I buy a Leapmotor C10?

The challenge for anyone considering purchasing a Leapmotor C10 right now will be a lack of knowledge about the brand and its products. Only time will tell if the C10 is a reliable and enjoyable vehicle to own.

Offsetting these concerns to some extent are its keen pricing, its generous list of standard features, and its association with the well-established Stellantis conglomerate.

Also coming into the equation is an attractive seven-year 160,000km warranty on the vehicle and eight-year 160,000km high-voltage battery warranty, along with 12-month 20,000km service intervals, five-years of capped price servicing costing $2000, and five-years of roadside assist.

Collectively, this makes for an appealing ownership package, provided the vehicle is reliable and the servicing backup is there to support it.

Undoubtedly the most annoying aspect of the car is its over-vigilant ADAS systems which are constantly hectoring you that you’re doing things wrong when you’re not. But, for many people the price, finishes, features and overall practicality of the package will be extremely attractive.

It may not be a serious rival to the Tesla Model Y, but against a number of other competitors, including various Chinese rivals, the C10 makes a strong case for consideration based on its impressive value, well-rounded performance, and comfortable accommodation.

Learn more about the Leapmotor C10