The Leapmotor C10 REEV midsize SUV to be launched in South Africa this year is a Battery Electric Motor (BEV) but technically it’s also not.
We’ll get to why but if you haven’t heard of Leapmotor before, it’s a Chinese manufacturer that Stellantis has a 20% stake in and owns 51% of Leapmotor International, a joint venture with Leapmotor.
As a reminder, in South Africa Stellantis has Citroen, Fiat, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Opel, Peugeot, Abarth and soon Leapmotor under its umbrella.
What is REEV?
REEV stands for Range Extender Electric Vehicle which is essentially a hybrid vehicle that combines BEV technology with an internal combustion engine (ICE).
It’s not a hybrid vehicle as we’ve come to know it, like the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid that uses a traditional hybrid model.
It has a 1.5-litre 50kW four cylinder petrol unit under the bonnet with the sole purpose of acting as a generator when the battery charge gets to a certain percentage. It doesn’t drive the wheels directly but generates electricity to recharge the 28.4kWh battery that powers a 158kW electric motor with 320Nm of torque on the rear axle.
The battery provides a claimed 145km of electric range (WLTP).
This way you should, according to Leapmotor, get a range of well over 900 kilometres.
It’s also a plug-in hybrid that with a DC 65kW charger takes 28 minutes to get from 30% to 80% and 4.5 hours to full with 6.6kW AC charging.
Modes
The C10 REEV comes with four driving modes EV+, EV, Fuel Mode and Power+.
In EV+ Mode the electric motor is prioritised and the range extender (engine) only kicks in when the State of Charge (SoC) reaches below 9%.
In EV Mode the electric motor is prioritised with the range extender starting to work intelligently (according to speed/SoC/power demand) when the SoC is below 25%.
In Fuel Mode the engine runs constantly and is used to maximise driving range.
In Power+ the range extender will immediately start working to improve power output and provide maximum performance.
In addition you can also choose between Normal, Save, Eco, Sport and custom settings.
Exterior and interior
The C10 doesn’t have a particular stand out design; it's attractive and generic to the segment with clean modern lines and curves, a closed off grill pointing to its EV heritage, slim LED headlights and a full width LED rear lightbar.
It comes with five exterior colour options; metallic green, white, light grey, dark grey and black.
The interior fit and finishing is of a good quality and it’s completely smooth with not a dial or button to be seen.
It may look good but It means that all settings, even the airflow direction, have to be adjusted via the 14.6-inch touchscreen which isn't ideal when you’re focussing on driving.
There is legislation afoot to change that to allow for more tactile buttons for certain functions precisely because of the screen distraction.
The driver gets a 10.2-inch digital cluster that’s customisable depending on what information you want.
There is however, one infotainment drawback in that it doesn’t allow for Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
There is a smartphone mirroring over-the-air (OTA) update scheduled, but I don’t understand why some of the Chinese brands don’t have it as a standard feature to compete internationally.
It has a large panoramic sunroof and ambient lighting.
The heated and ventilated seats are covered in OEK-TEX silicone and we found them to be comfortable and supportive and there’s an impressive amount of passenger space that also has a reclining seat function.
Boot space is listed as 400 litres but it looks to be bigger after we had loaded two overnight wheelie bags and laptop bags for our two day drive in Spain.
Driving impressions
We drove almost 500 kilometres over two days from Valencia to Barcelona which gave us a decent opportunity to experience the C10 REEV through slow winding narrow roads that passed small Spanish towns and highways.
The drive is quiet and relatively refined with only the wind and tyre noise apparent but not intrusive while there’s also no obvious indication when the engine kicks in to start charging.
Acceleration is adequate with a linear delivery of power that unlike some EVs doesn’t thump you back into your seat which we appreciated not only because the novelty soon wears off but it also saves the battery range.
For a fairly large SUV, it handles and engages well with good dynamics albeit with some vague steering feedback but considering its application as a family car, this is to be expected.
Thanks to its low centre of gravity as a result of the chassis fitted batteries, it sits tightly in the twisties although we didn’t dare break the 50km/h speed limit in the mountains because I doubt the Spanish Guardia Civil would have taken kindly to the offer of a KFC and a cold drink.
We toggled between the various modes and settled mostly on EV and Fuel Modes for highway driving.
This also has to be adjusted on the screen which takes your eyes off the road which in turn gets the driver monitoring system pinging to warn you that you’re not focussing on the road.
Intrusive safety systems
Which gets us to those safety systems.
It has a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating but to say they’re annoying and intrusive is an understatement. While I know EU legislation prescribes it, perhaps there’s a less intrusive way to go about it, before you drive into a lake as a result of the frustration.
As it is, there’s already a shortcut on the screen to the menu providing you with the option of turning the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) off. Leapmotor say they have already implemented OTA software updates to improve it with more scheduled for the future.
On day one we managed to switch everything off but because it defaults to the original setting, you need to set everything again every time the car has been switched off.
Which we duly did on day two including Emergency Lane Keeping but try as we might it would continue to beep constantly even if we were still a fair way away from the lines.
I reckon the system needs further calibration before launching locally.
Interestingly they spent months on R&D setting up the car for European conditions with Stellantis engineers focussing on suspension and chassis set-up to make it align more for a faster average speed.
Economy
When we stopped in Barcelona we had driven 460km with about 300km left in the 50-litre fuel tank and 80km remaining in the battery. The drive also included long stretches of highway driving at 120km/h to get to the airport so we weren’t that far off the claimed range.
Pricing?
I think the success of the Leapmotor C10 REEV will depend largely on pricing.
In Europe it starts at €36,000 which without taxes and import duties equates to about R762 000.
With its impressive range and features if they can bring it in under R800 000 South Africans are likely to warm to it as opposed to a full BEV because let’s face it, despite what the converted say, we haven’t exactly embraced electric cars with much enthusiasm.