Among the many Chinese brands already in the UK and those set to arrive soon, Leapmotor is reasserting its claim to be a brand with a difference.
Leapmotor International is a joint venture between Leapmotor in China and Stellantis, with the European company owning 51 per cent of that business. Stellantis also owns 21 per cent of the Chinese Leapmotor parent company.
As a result of all that, Chinese-built Leapmotor models are sold through a ready-made retailer network in the UK alongside Vauxhall, Citroen, Fiat and Peugeot models. And in 2025, the brand sold 4,273 cars – more than fellow Stellantis brand Alfa Romeo.
Speaking to The Independent at the Brussels Motor Show, Tianshu Xin, CEO of Leapmotor International, explained the three things that he says makes Leapmotor different.
“Number one is trust,” said Xin. “With Leapmotor International part of Stellantis you can trust that we’re going to stay here for the long run. We’re not going to disappear tomorrow.
“The second is parts availability. If some cars have a problem and need to be serviced, very often they have to wait for six to nine months for the parts to arrive from China to be here – the whole distribution of parts and availability system was not established before the brand launch. What we did is before we launched the brand, we had almost 100 per cent of parts available in one of the warehouse installations in Europe.
“Then there’s quality. From day one, for all the cars we launch in Europe, from the little T03 to the C10 SUV, every car is equipped with over the air update capability. So that’s like your mobile phone – overnight, you see the next day it’s a brand-new customer experience.”
Leapmotor used the Brussels Motor Show to give the European debut to its new B03X model, a small, all-electric SUV that pitches the brand into the highly competitive small SUV sector, dominated by Britain’s best-selling car, the Ford Puma. The new B05 small hatchback was also on display, with a glimpse at its interior for the first time, while Xin also revealed that there would be more models to come.
“We will have another model, maybe we will call it B as well without the X, the B03 – and that’s a hatchback,” he said.
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As for the sub-£15,000 T03 city car, a model we’ve described as Britain’s best-value EV, Xin confirmed that it will continue to be sold before being replaced by another small, high-value model. “That car will remain for sure,” said Xin. “It will be replaced by the next generation, but what name we’re going to call, we haven’t decided yet.”
Although Leapmotor sells the C16 – a six-seater version of the C10 – in China, along with the larger D19 model, Xin said that the C10 was probably as large as Leapmotor is going to go in Europe.
The brand is set to bring out more ‘range extender’ plug-in hybrid models, though, with a range extender version of its new B10 electric model – which has just gone on sale in the UK – with a claimed 559-mile range from its combination of 1.5-litre petrol engine and 18.8kWh battery that also offers an EV-only range of 50 miles. The new B10 Hybrid EV will cost the same as the electric B10 model, which costs £31,495 less a £1,500 ‘Leap Grant’ discount.
