Leapmotor C10 Review & Prices

The Leapmotor C10 is the latest Chinese electric car vying for your attention. It’s a mid-sized SUV with styling that flies under the radar and a focus on practicality and value - but it needs some serious updates if it’s going to be properly usable on UK roads.

You may never have heard of Leapmotor, but it’s likely you will in the next few years. It is a Chinese brand, but in Europe it’s backed by the giant Stellantis group that owns Peugeot, Citroen, Vauxhall and several other car companies. That means you don’t need to worry that you’re buying an unknown quantity you won’t be able to get serviced or find parts for, as there’s a ready-made support network.

The C10 is Leapmotor’s electric-powered family SUV, and so it’s an alternative to some of the best EVs on sale. The Skoda Elroq, Renault Scenic E-Tech, MG S5 EV and Peugeot E-2008 are all viable options, but the C10 is a bit bigger, with an emphasis on interior space as well as a premium feel. It’s like flying business on a budget airline.

You certainly won’t worry about standing out in the Leapmotor C10. It’s pretty plainly styled, with an amorphous blob-like body without much detailing. Some would say it’s clean, others might go as far as bland. The front lightbar does look a little like Marvin the Paranoid Android, and the 20-inch alloy wheels look rather lost in their arches.

Leapmotor C10: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 263 miles
Efficiency: 3.7 mi/kWh
Battery size: 69.9kW
Max charge speed: 84kW
Charge time AC: 10 hours 0-100%, 7kW
Charge time DC: 30 mins 30 - 80%, 84kW
Charge port location: Rear left
Power outputs: 218hp

The interior styling is even more unusual. It’s not the complete lack of physical switchgear - many SUVs are like that these days - it’s that Leapmotor has made the whole interior the same colour, across all the different materials used. Again, your own taste will dictate if you find this minimalist or just a bit boring, but build quality and the materials used do feel a bit nicer than you might expect from an electric car at this price.

And your rear passengers certainly won’t have any complaints about space. Even sat behind a tall driver there’s room to stretch out, with loads of legroom and plenty of headroom even considering the full panoramic glass roof. The boot is less impressive, smaller than the Skoda Elroq’s or Renault Scenic’s, but it’s still enough for a full family shop.

Leapmotor has loaded the C10 with equipment - there are twin screens, electrically adjustable seats which are heated and ventilated, full LED lights and a panoramic glass roof all trying to convince you this is a luxury car. But there are some key omissions that might be dealbreakers - there’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, for example, nor adjustable lumbar support.

Leapmotor claims a maximum of 263 miles from the C10’s relatively large battery, which indicates pretty poor energy efficiency - in the real world we got about 200 miles, which isn’t great at all. Certainly you’ll be able to go further on a charge in most of the C10’s main alternatives, and public charging is really slow too, which will make undertaking longer journeys frustrating as you spend ages waiting by a charger.

Long journeys won’t be the most fun in the C10 either. It’s not bad to drive - a bit uncomfortable over bumps, but generally pretty quiet and easy. However, the driver assistance features simply can’t cope with any UK road narrower than the M25, which means it’s incredibly frustrating taking the C10 down a country lane or even through a town centre.

If your main priority is maximum passenger space for minimum money, then check out our Leapmotor C10 deals. You can also see our best Leapmotor C10 leasing deals, or see what we have available by the way of used Leapmotors for sale. And remember that Carwow can even help you to sell your old car when the time comes.

The Leapmotor C10 model range couldn’t be easier to digest - there’s one, and it costs £36,500. That makes it a bit cheaper than a Renault Scenic E-Tech, though it’s undercut by the Skoda Elroq and MG S5 EV. It’s a physically larger car than those three, with more room in the back - though boot space is pretty much comparable.

You do at least get plenty of equipment - the 14.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system looks great and it’s paired to a premium sound system. Dual-zone climate control, a 360-degree camera, heated and ventilated seats, a panoramic sunroof and all the usual safety technology come as standard too, making entry-level versions of alternatives look quite mean. However, the C10 doesn’t have smartphone mirroring, which is pretty much an essential these days.

Quiet, with light controls - but a bit lumpy on rough roads, and the driver assistance systems are worse than useless

In town

Most electric cars excel at town driving thanks to the instant response of their electric motors at low speeds, and because they don’t have any gears to shift. The C10 fits this mould, and all you really have to do is stick it in drive and be on your way.

There are four levels of regenerative braking on offer, as well as a separate one-pedal mode - these are all great to have, but it’s annoying that you have to go into the central touchscreen to change them - and to switch into one-pedal mode, the car has to be parked up, so you can’t change it on the fly.

The electric motor’s response isn’t as lightning-fast as in some alternatives. In fact, most of the time it feels slower than entry-level versions of the Renault Scenic or Skoda Elroq, even if it’s quicker on paper - Leapmotor has made the initial power delivery quite restricted for a smoother getaway.

It’s a pity the suspension isn’t quite so smooth. It’s not the most uncomfortable electric SUV, but it thuds over larger bumps and can sway about for a little while after hitting them. The light steering and 360-degree cameras make low-speed manoeuvring easier, though.

On the motorway

The C10 is hushed and relaxed on the motorway with wind and road noise well contained. The suspension again feels a bit jiggly, though, meaning long drives aren’t as relaxing as they should be.

You do have to put your foot down to get up to speed, though it doesn’t feel too slow - just not as immediately powerful as some alternatives. Switching into Sport mode does help with this, but again this takes quite a few taps on the touchscreen.

More annoying are the driver assistance systems - but more on them in a moment.

On a twisty road

The C10 isn’t particularly powerful, and the lightweight steering gives no indication of what the front wheels are up to. Even in Sport mode, it’s not the sort of car you’ll want to drive particularly quickly - which is a trait it shares with many other electric SUVs.

What it doesn’t share with most alternatives is driver ‘assistance’ technology that seems hellbent on making it nearly impossible to drive down a British B-road without tearing your hair out at the roots.

The driver monitoring system reacts if you take your eyes off the road dead ahead for even a moment - it beeped angrily at us for looking in a side mirror. It also gets angry when it detects you’re fatigued - and bad news for car-aoke fans, as it has a tendency to interpret singing as yawning and flash up a warning.

There’s standard lane-keeping assist and emergency lane-keeping assist, but neither are capable of dealing with even quite a wide B-road. The car tugs at the wheel incessantly, beeping the entire time, which is utterly infuriating. And while you can turn the regular lane-keeping assist off from a handy shortcut button, you need to be parked to disable the emergency system.

These features are currently in an appalling state - Leapmotor says it can apply software fixes with an over-the-air update, and we would strongly recommend that you wait until the company has done so if you’re considering buying one of these cars.

Loads of room in the back seats, but the boot is smaller than most alternatives

Up front in the Leapmotor C10 you get electrically-adjustable seats as standard, and with reach and rake adjustment on the steering wheel it’s easy to find a good driving position. However, there’s no adjustable lumbar support, so while the seats are pretty good at keeping you in place round corners they are not so good for your spine on a long drive.

Storage for smaller items is about average - the door bins are a good size, though the glovebox is quite shallow. The centre console has a hidden storage area underneath, and a good spot under the armrest, but you’ll have to use the deep cupholders to store smaller items like keys or wallets. The wireless charging pad is easy to find, but it does mean your phone’s in direct sunlight a lot of the time - and so it’s liable to get very hot.

Space in the back seats

In the rear of the Leapmotor C10 you’ll find massive amounts of space for passengers. Sitting behind a six-foot tall driver, a passenger of a similar size will be able to stretch out, and there’s loads of headroom too.

The floor is totally flat and the rear bench isn’t too sculpted, which combined with the wide cabin means you actually won’t struggle to fit three adults in the back. Storage isn’t as good, though - the door bins are smaller and there are no cupholders in the flip-down centre armrest. You get ISOFIX points in both outer rear seats and there’s ample space for child seats, even bulky rear-facing ones.

Boot space

With 435 litres of space, the Leapmotor C10’s boot is smaller than the 470-litre Skoda Elroq, the 469-litre Kia EV3 and 545-litre Renault Scenic E-Tech. While it’s still plenty for a big weekly shop or a weekend away, you definitely get more room in alternatives.

You can fold the seats down easily and they do go nice and flat, but a sliding rear bench would be great to allow you to balance that cavernous rear legroom with a bit more boot space. There’s also a small ‘frunk’ suitable for cable storage.

Monochromatic interior is nicely-built but frustrating to use

The C10 has a rather interesting interior style, as while it uses several different materials for different areas of the cabin they’re all exactly the same colour. The exception is that, in models with light upholstery, the door tops and dashboard are dark grey to avoid excessive reflections.

It’s honestly quite a cool effect, and the materials used - entirely animal-free - all seem pretty nice to the touch. Special mention goes to the very soft and comfortable artificial leather seats, though as we mentioned earlier it’s a shame they don’t adjust as much as you might like them to.

There are two screens inside the C10 - a 10.3-inch driver information display and a 14.6-inch touchscreen infotainment system. The driver screen is bright and clear, and the infotainment screen is very high-definition and responds quickly to swipes and prods.

However, the interface is frustrating to use. Too many of the C10’s functions are controlled through long menus with small buttons which are a pain to hit on the move. It’s not always obvious which functions are secreted where in the infotainment system, and with no physical switchgear save a couple of multifunction switches on the steering wheel you can’t even eschew using the touchscreen if you wanted to.

Worse still, the built-in software for sat-nav and music streaming isn’t great, and at present you can’t bypass them like you can on all of the C10’s main alternatives by using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto - as they’re not fitted. Leapmotor says they can be added with an over-the-air update, but until they are that’s a significant black mark against the C10.

Leapmotor claims that the C10 can do up to 263 miles on a charge. With a 69.9kWh battery that’s not a particularly impressive figure - a Skoda Elroq can do 266 miles from a 59kWh battery, for example, and an MG S5 EV can do 298 from a 64kWh one.

Expect a real-world range of around 200 miles from the C10 - about what we’ve come to expect from small electric hatchbacks rather than large family SUVs. That’s the only size of battery available in the Leapmotor, too, so you can’t get a long-range model better-suited to lengthier drives. A plug-in hybrid model is on the way, however.

The battery capacity is one thing, though - what’s really bad is how long it takes to charge it back up. Leapmotor’s only fitted 84kW charging, which in simple terms means that in the time it takes the C10 to top up from 10-80%, you could have charged 2.5 Kia EV6s.

This has knock-on impacts for long journeys - where you could manage with a quick splash’n’dash in some alternatives, the C10 will require you stop for a good while longer. On the plus side, you don’t need to seek out the fastest available chargers - the C10 will top up at full speed from even quite basic units, which tend to be cheaper.

As a fully electric car the Leapmotor C10 pays the lowest rate of first-year road tax and because it costs less than £40,000 it isn’t subject to the expensive car supplement. As a company car it sits in the lowest Benefit-in-Kind bracket alongside all other EVs.

When Euro NCAP tested the Leapmotor C10, it awarded the top five-star safety rating with good scores all round. That goes to show the biggest difference between testing conditions and the real world, though - while the C10’s safety systems might work very well in Euro NCAP’s facility, they’re so irritating that we can’t imagine you’ll ever want to keep them switched on, somewhat defeating the point of having them.

It’s far too early to know if the Leapmotor C10 will be reliable, but it does have a benefit over other Chinese car brands - the backing of the mammoth Stellantis group, which also owns Peugeot, Citroen, Vauxhall, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and others.

This means that you’ll buy your Leapmotor C10 from an established dealer, and that there’s already an extensive national network of service centres. Parts supply shouldn’t be a problem either, as it can be with cars from newer brands.

However, Leapmotor hasn’t been bold enough to offer a super-long warranty like alternatives from MG or Omoda. You get four years of coverage, which is a year longer than standard, but still the same 60,000-mile limit - not fantastic.