Leapmotor B10 - Drives well without the glitz, glamour or fuss
Ah, Leapmotor. After a gentle dalliance at the beginning of 2025 that left me both thoroughly ‘whelmed’ (the T03 city car) and ‘a bit cross’ (the C10 EV), the Chinese firm is back for more. The B10 SUV enters the critical C-Segment of the market, targeting small to mid-sized family SUVs. Your Skoda Karoqs, Renault Scenics, and such make up a HUGE chunk of car sales each year, and Leapmotor wants its pound of electricity.
Offering a decent slug of ride height, EV power, and all the toys as standard, the B10 is, on paper, a promising offer. Is it in practice, though, or will it be a car for people who want a great deal and don’t ever get buyer’s remorse?
The Leapmotor Story
Let’s talk about Leapmotor first. Founded in 2015, the Chinese firm and Stellantis joined forces in 2023, forming Leapmotor International. Stellantis owns a controlling stake in it, and can dictate what gets sold outside of China. The resulting firm, Leapmotor International, can use Stellantis’ network of dealers, the used car network, marketing and sales expertise, and more to make sure cars are well looked after. It’s immensely proud of its robust parts supply and logistics - if your Leapmotor breaks, you shouldn’t be waiting for a part very long.
The company may seem new to use over here, but in China, it’s going great guns. It builds pretty much everything in house, and while it doesn’t like to be known as ‘cheap,’ everything comes as standard - there aren’t any options to speak of, and the ticket price won’t make you wince. Each Leapmotor is about as affordable as you can get without building your own EV with a nine-volt battery, a Hot Wheel, and some balsa wood. And even then…
How does the B10 stack up?
The B10 is a hugely important car for the brand by virtue of being the one people are likely to buy. It’s small, at 4.5 metres long, 1.9 metres wide, and 1.7 metres tall, but there’s still ample room inside for adults, kids, and stuff. The boot comes with 430 litres of space seats up, but flip ‘em down, and you’ll get 1700 litres to play with. That’s good for families that do family things like shopping, going to various classes early on a Saturday morning, road trips, or tip runs. It seats five quite happily, with more than enough room in the back for normal-sized adults… at least for short to middle distance journeys.
B10 Performance & Range
To make those journeys happen, there’s a 67.1kWh battery under the body, feeding power to a 215bhp 177lb ft motor that fires power to the rear wheels. Leapmotor says it’ll crack 0-62mph in 8.0 seconds, and 106mph, all while managing 270 miles on a charge. When it comes time to top up, if you can find a 168kW charger you’ll get from 30 to 80% SOC in just 20 minutes. That all sounds remarkably respectable.
B10 vs C10 - How do they compare?
But the B10 has a problem, its bigger brother - the Leapmotor C10. At first glance, the C10 was a dream of a car - big, cheap, decent range, and, and, and… but it wasn’t very good (I’m assured it’s been updated since). Its handling was woeful, the materials were strange, the door took convincing to open, the nav froze up, and the heater didn’t heat the car. You’ll forgive a minor expectation that the B10 was going to be the same but smaller.
Pleasingly…it’s not. It’s best to manage expectations and say that it’s not going to knock your socks off at all. It’s ‘A Car’ through and through, which is just fine. It knows what it’s about, and that’s not doing a billion miles an hour sideways while putting on a light show. It’s about getting itself and its occupants from A to B without fuss or trouble.
Driving Experience & Interior Issues
It feels pleasingly brisk in any of its ‘acceleration modes’ - you can turn the wick up or down (comfort, standard, or sport are your choices) depending on your mood, basically. You can also mess with the brake regen and steering weight if you’d like to. Adjusting them, though, is done through the 14.6inch central display. In fact, most things are done through it. Including adjusting your mirrors, turning off irritating ADAS functions, and media settings. Sure, it’s all a bit ‘broken record-y’ that doing everything via touch screens is a pain in the arse, but, and I have to say this loudly…DOING EVERYTHING VIA TOUCH SCREENS IS A PAIN IN THE ARSE. At best, it’s annoying, and at worst, it’s distracting. There was once a time when we all complained about having too many buttons to push, but there must be a happy medium to find. It doesn’t help that the B10’s menu isn’t very intuitive. Oh well. The car’s inbuilt nav works well, though CarPlay and Android Auto are both on the way - the fact they’re not launching with the car is a little annoying, but not the end of the world.
To drive, the B10 is decent. The turn of pace, as mentioned, is pleasing, and it steers well, too. It would be kind to say it offers an engaging drive, but all the controls do what they’re supposed to do. It goes, stops, steers, and whisks you around without incident. The ride can get a little unbalanced over lumpy roads, and a touch vibrate-y when the surface is rough, but on most surfaces it’s just fine. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but then you remember it costs £31,495 (£29,995 after a £1,500 ‘Leap-Grant’ for retail customers), and that not everything has to make your nethers feel funny, and all of a sudden… it’s OK.
There are a couple of things that’ll take you by surprise - the window switches work counterintuitively, which takes some getting used to, and the materials are a bit odd, but that’s kinda it.
Concluding Thoughts
The Leapmotor B10 looks decent, drives well enough, and won’t cost the earth. That, in 2025 (and 2026) is a good thing. It’s not the fastest, nor the most engaging, and the badge on its nose probably won’t make your neighbours salivate. But it’s a car that’ll do all the things you need it to do without glitz, glamour, or fuss. It’s tough to recommend overall, though - not because it’s bad, but because for its sniff over modest entry fee, you can get a used car from an established manufacturer that might do a bit more for you, and will lose less cash in the short term.
Read more about Leapmotor:
Leapmotor C10 Review - Too Good to be True?
Leapmotor encourage Brits to take the ‘leap’ into EV ownership with bungee jump showroom
words: Alex Goy
pictures: Leapmotor
