Words by Donal Byrne, video by Leah Carroll.
With the arrival of a new Chinese car brand, Leapmotor, we finally have a reasonable choice of small electric cars priced at under €20,000 on the Irish market - albeit cars that are designed and built as city cars rather than anything more adventurous.
Leapmotor, like many Chinese companies is rapidly growing, but it's a very new brand, while others, such as BYD and MG, have a bit of head start. Unlike the others it has decided not to go it alone but to pair up with the European Stellantis Group, maker of brands such as Opel, Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen, which now owns 51% of Leapmotor. That means Leapmotor has Stellantis-backed warranties, but more of that later.
The entry level car is the T03, a small and dinky but somewhat cute car with a modest 37.3 kWh battery and a 95 horse power motor. It is very much a city car with small dimensions - it’s just 3.6 metres long.
The claimed range is another modest 265 kilometres and it transpires that this range is quite accurate. A brief but mixed journey of urban and motorway driving of 126 kilometres still left me with 147 kilometres of range, indicating an overall one of 273 kilometres.
It’s a car designed for average sized drivers and passengers. The taller driver will be left wanting just a little more seat travel to make journeys comfortable but it’s fine on short trips.
There’s a 10.1" infotainment screen which controls pretty much everything on both this car and the bigger SUV, the C10. Neither car has enough buttons for my liking and there’s a lot of digging around on the screen to be done to get what you need done, especially when driving.
Pretty much everything comes down to pricing - the TO3 starts at €18,995 after grants. It may be dearer than a Dacia Spring (from €14,490) but it’s a better all 'round experience. However, it doesn’t quite match up to a Hyundai Inster (from €19,595) or the new BYD Dolphin Surf (from €17,985). The Inster still dominates this little group when everything is taken into account.
Leapmotor is unusual in that it has built in a faux warning sound in the car at speeds of up to 30 kmh to alert pedestrians to your presence nearby. It does take a little getting used to, however, as it sounds like a wind coming through a rattly sash window on a winter's night. Still, it’s a preferable safety option.
Steering can be a little soft in eco mode but gets firmer as you move into sport mode.
Software can be glitchy. On both the TO3 and the C10 speed limit recognition were patchy, as were voice commands on the C10. The camera that monitors the driver’s face for fatigue can be over zealous and remind you to concentrate when you don’t really need to. However, watching cameras are a feature of Chinese cars. Maybe a little masking tape might just be the best solution here.
Standard equipment is where Chinese cars have a distinct advantage though. Included on this little car are a panoramic glass roof, blind spot alert on the driver’s side mirror (unusual on budget cars), automatic parking, adaptive cruise control, a reversing camera, voice control and air conditioning.
There is no EuroNCAP crash test result on the car yet but the C10 does have a full five star rating. There’s a six year, unlimited mileage, warranty on both cars and an eight year, or 160,000 kilometres (whichever comes first) battery warranty.
The C10 mid-sized SUV is spacious, very spacious. I drove the extended range REEV, which has a 1.5 litre petrol engine that is there only to charge the battery. In other words, it doesn’t drive the wheels.
Leapmotor claims a total range of combined electric and petrol range of 975 kilometres and I returned an average over a good distance of rural and motorway driving of 6.1 litres per 100 km’s of fuel.
You will feel an extra drain on the engine, which has a CVT constant gearing system, when accelerating hard but generally it is a very quiet experience. You do get some intrusive wind noise at motorway speeds as the wind whistles on the exterior mirrors but at lower speeds everything is a lot more refined. Poorer roads to tend to present challenges for the suspension but not unusually so.
You get a 10.25" driver’s information screen and a 14.6" infotainment screen. Again, the absence of more functional buttons is an issue and, again, there are software issues related to speed limit recognition and voice activation - both should be addressed by software updates soon.
So too is the fact that to open the car or the boot you have to move to the driver’s side mirror to pair the key card with the system - not ideal if you are beating through rain with your shopping.
Oddly, neither Apple Car Play nor Android Auto pairing is currently available but Leapmotor says they will be added by over the air updates in December, in time for January registrations.
The boot is a very generous 435 litres, extending to over 1400 litres with the seats folded. Access to the boot area is at just the right height too.
At a starting price of €45,420 (the battery version starts at €38,995), the extended range version is competitive.
For both cars, however, name recognition, which takes time, may be a significant challenge.
Watch more: Leah Carroll looks at the Peugeot E-408
