Leapmotor B10 SUV

160kW 70kWh 5dr Auto [2025]

Breaking news: a Chinese car company has started selling cars in the United Kingdom.

If that’s started to sound like a headline you’ve heard a million times before over the past year or two, you’re absolutely right.

Leapmotor is one of over a dozen Chinese car brands that have suddenly surged into the UK marketplace, hoping to appeal to the great British public.

There is Chery, and its two sub-brands, Jaecoo and Omoda, as well as BYD, Xpeng, Ora, Skywell, GWM– that’s just a taster, and apparently there’s more yet to come.

All of them have their own background stories – some of them really quite bizarre, with fridge freezers and CCTV cameras amongst the genesis of some manufacturers, historically speaking.

Leapmotor, though, arguably has an advantage over its native competition: the big, powerful Stellantis.

The automotive goliath, formed from the 2021 merger of the PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, owns Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Peugeot, and Vauxhall/Opel, among others.

And as of late summer 2024, Stellantis also now owns 51% of Leapmotor International – essentially the umbrella organisation that runs Leapmotor’s operations outside of China.

The idea is simple: leverage Stellantis' extensive dealer network and expertise to bring Leapmotor cars to the UK’s shores and beyond.

Leapmotor has already ushered in the tiny T03 fully electric city car, along with the C10 SUV. And now it’s adding another SUV: the smaller all-electric B10.

While that could be the name of a pop group or an aircraft, it's actually a fully electric compact crossover SUV. But is it any good?

We have taken one for a test drive to give it a good old shakedown.