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By Jonathan Crouch

The Leapmotor B10 is a compact electric SUV that could hardly be more important to its Chinese brand. Jonathan Crouch drives it.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 64

The B10 is the model Leapmotor expects to be its strongest seller, a compact electric crossover that delivers everything you'd expect of a Chinese brand contender in this class. So it's well equipped, spacious and quite smart to look at. The battery stuff (like range and charging) is class-competitive. But, as with most Oriental EVs, there are things you'll have to get used to.

Backgroundword count: 131

In theory, Leapmotor ought to be the most European-feeling of all the Chinese car makers. It is after all part-owned by European giant Stellantis and sells through that conglomerate's dealerships. And Stellantis engineers help tailor Leapmotor's models for our continent's roads and customer tastes on this side of the globe. They've certainly had a hand in the final version of this car, the Leapmotor B10. Like nearly all Leapmotor models, it's primarily an EV, slotting into the company's line-up just above the B05 family hatch and just below the C10 lower mid-sized SUV. And gives the brand the volume sales contender it needs in the core part of the compact EV crossover market for family hatch-derived models against cars like the Skoda Elroq, the Kia EV3 and the Hyundai Kona Electric.

Driving Experienceword count: 391

As with Leapmotor's larger C10 model, there's a choice of two similarly-priced but quite different drivetrains for this B10. It's the full-EV set-up we tried, which offers a single 67.1kWh battery option with a drive range of 270 miles. If that's not quite enough, take a look at the alternative range extender 'Hybrid EV' combustion version, which uses a 1.5-litre petrol generator unit paired with an 18.8kWh battery capable of around 53 miles of EV range - and up to around 559 miles between stops once the combustion element is factored in. We'd council you to try both before making a final decision. The B10 Hybrid EV offers a number of different drive modes which allow you to select when you want the engine generator to engage. It can cut in automatically when the battery's at 9%, 25% or 80%. Or you can force the engine generator to run continually in order to extract the maximum performance from the powertrain. That performance is slightly blunted by the fact that this Hybrid EV B10 weighs 10kgs more than the EV model; and the 0-62mph time is about a second slower. We can't imagine that would be a deal breaker. We tried the full-EV model. Europe gets a version with a smaller 56.2kWh battery, but that struggles to reach 200 miles, which Leapmotor rightly thinks 'isn't acceptable' for the UK. The 67.1kWh version we do get here has the same 216bhp motor as the C10 which (unlike most of its non-VW Group rivals) the Chinese maker chooses to mount at the rear. There are no other full-EV drivetrain variants. The car doesn't hurl itself away from rest like some other similarly-sized EVs we've tried, but that's fine and 0-62mph in 8s is about as fast as a typical owner of this car will want to go, en route to quite an un-EV-like maximum of 108mph. We'd hoped for decent drive dynamics here, not only because of the rear-driven format and almost perfect 50:50 weight distribution but also because, like other Leapmotor models, this one's suspension was developed by Stellantis engineers at Fiat's Balocco proving ground in Italy. As it turns out though, this B10 has unremarkable drive dynamics - and the usual unresponsive Chinese model level of steering feel. But at least the ride quality is decently judged and there's excellent cruising refinement.

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