Leapmotor C10 2024 review: Chinese SUV needs to compete on more than just price
Takes aim at Audi, BMW and Mercedes ... and misses
Amid worsening economic conditions in China, the carmakers have been accused of dumping cheap electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe, and the influx of new Chinese manufacturers would suggest there’s something to that accusation. But for consumers — that’s you and me — there’s an ongoing debate as to whether such actions really matter. After all, won’t a greater selection of cheap, high-tech electric cars be a good thing for those who want to shrink their carbon footprint? [There are other considerations for ethical consumers, including environmental and human rights considerations during production and transportation* — Ed.]
That’s certainly the thinking Chinese brand Leapmotor is hoping to see on these shores, where the company has just launched. With the backing of Franco-Italian giant Stellantis — the owner of Peugeot, Vauxhall and Fiat — it has already revealed the T03 city car, and our test revealed it has promise. But the T03 is not alone in Leapmotor’s range, with the new C10 SUV arriving at much the same time.
It’s a bit of an oxymoron, this car, with premium aspirations tempered by a mainstream price tag, but Leapmotor clearly thinks it has a chance.
At first glance, we see no reason to argue. Yes, it’s a bit bland and generic, but from some angles the C10 has more than a hint of Porsche Cayenne about it. There are shades of Nio EL6 in there, too, although the Leapmotor has the advantage over that car because it goes without the weird bug-eyed sensors that adorn the EL6’s roof. One could describe the Leapmotor as quite handsome, in fact, but in a conservative kind of way. There’s nothing striking about it.
And the same goes for the interior, where the C10 seems almost devoid of styling. The cabin is minimalist to the point of being barren, with just a touchscreen and digital instrument display by way of punctuation.
In the C10’s defence, the clean style will appeal to many — even BMW is going for buttonless dashboards these days — but nobody is going to get especially excited about it.
That’s a pity because it’s actually quite well made. Some of the materials are pleasing to the touch, and they all seem to be pretty well bolted together. Yes, the steering wheel buttons are quite confusing but apart from that it’s quite ergonomically intuitive, and it all feels fairly robust. A solid effort for something with this kind of pricetag.
At £36,500, the C10 isn’t “cheap” per se. It’s more expensive than your average pencil sharpener, and unless you live in London, it costs more than a pint in your local. But it’s barely half the price of the new electric Porsche Macan or the Audi Q6 e-tron, both of which are a comparable size to the C10. And while nobody — not even Leapmotor — is trying to pretend the C10 is as good as the Porsche or the Audi, there’s an argument to suggest it’s better value than the German alternatives.
Customers get more freebies than a front-bench politician, with just one fully-stacked trim level offered in the UK. A massive central touchscreen is fitted as standard, and it’s joined by an only slightly smaller digital instrument display. Climate control is included, too, alongside an 840-watt audio system, wireless phone charging and a 360-degree parking camera system. A heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated (cooled) front seats and a glass roof also feature, leaving buyers wanting for little.
And though the tech is imperfect, it’s less imperfect than most of those employed in products of Leapmotor’s sibling brands, which include Alfa Romeo, Jeep and DS. None of those companies’ infotainment systems is as slick, sharp or speedy as Leapmotor’s.
The company has incorporated an app to make the ownership experience more appealing, too. You can pre-set the climate control before you get in the car, for example, and you can use a phone as a key fob. And while that may not be big news in the new EV market, it’s demonstrative of Leapmotor’s commitment to challenging the establishment on all fronts. [All you have to do is hand over your personal details — Ed. again]
But commitment doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, and though Leapmotor has put some effort into filling the C10 with kit, it has made less effort when it comes to letting you fill the C10 with kit. As is so often the way with Chinese cars, it seems rear cabin space has been prioritised over boot capacity, so while there’s enough space in the back seats for a basketball team to get comfy, their whiffy gym bags have to be wedged into the boot, which is barely larger than that of a Honda Civic.
Having chucked a fair bit of random rubbish in the C10’s boot, we suspect the sub-par volume is down to some oddity of the way Leapmotor has measured the space, but it still isn’t as large as the luggage bay in some of its main rivals.
And the boot isn’t the only underwhelming thing about the C10, which is so dull to drive that I refuse to bore you with reams of prose about it. Expecting the single-motor electric powertrain to imbue the SUV with character is a bit like expecting a sandstorm at the North Pole, but Leapmotor could have made up for that with a chassis that’s either great at engaging drivers or isolating them from the world outside.
Sadly, the C10 isn’t really much good on either front, with dull, lifeless steering and a ride that’s largely reasonable but doesn’t quite offer enough comfort and absorbency to make up for its so-so body control.
The result is a car that makes the inside of a ping pong ball seem interesting, and while that won’t put off every customer, it ensures this isn’t a car for those with an interest in driving.
Nor is it the car for those easily irritated by intrusive driver assistance technology, which counts me out immediately. As well as fitting all the usual safety tech — such as autonomous emergency braking to stop you rear-ending the car in front and lane departure warning to stop you sideswiping the vehicle next to you — the C10 also has a camera-based driver monitoring system. That might ring alarm bells among customers already concerned about the wisdom of buying a Chinese SUV, but Leapmotor says it obeys all the local rules, and the Chinese regime’s spying habits are the least of your worries when the C10 shouts at you every time you yawn. Sadly, that isn’t hyperbole.
In fairness, while the driver assistance tech might be as intrusive as Putin’s foreign policy, the C10’s driving experience is largely unremarkable, and the powertrain is similarly adequate. Power comes from a 215bhp electric motor that drives the rear wheels, and that’s fed by a 69.9kWh lithium-ion battery, resulting in performance that us nothing to write home about and range that is on the low side, at 262 miles on a single charge.
If you can achieve such efficiency, that’s acceptable, but on the motorway and with the climate control switched on, you’ll be struggling to get much more than 200 miles or so between trips to the plug.
Charging speeds are no better than adequate, either, with the C10 capable of recharging its battery from 30 to 80 per cent in about half an hour. That doesn’t sound bad, but when a Q6 e-tron will get from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in about 20 minutes, it’s less impressive.
That said, charging at those kinds of speeds is generally as much about the power of the charging point to which you connect as it is about the car you drive, and charging at home won’t allow you to top up the battery anything like that quickly. Leapmotor says the same 30-80 per cent charge will take a little over six hours, and recharging from empty to full will take longer. That’s fairly standard, though, and fine for an overnight top-up.
Should you buy one? Well, the C10 manages to impress with its value and quality but it just doesn’t offer the driver appeal or the battery tech to compete with most of the new European big boys. It’s an acceptable attempt at an upmarket SUV, but that’s all it is, and no matter how affordable the C10 may be, it’s still a long way off the all-round panache of the best from Germany.
*Chinese car makers
Leapmotor is a Chinese brand headquartered in Hangzhou, China, and has a strategic partnership to jointly develop electric vehicles with the state-owned FAW group, one of China’s “Big Four” car manufacturers. Stellantis acquired a 20 per cent stake in Leapmotor in October 2023, forming a joint venture that facilitates the distribution and production of Leapmotor cars in global markets outside China. The Leapmotor C10 is manufactured in Jinhua, Zhejiang. Buyers ought to be aware that Chinese car makers have been criticised for receiving an unfair advantage through WTO rule-breaking state support, from a political regime that Amnesty International reports carries out torture, genocide and routine suppression of dissent.
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