Leapmotor B10 (2025 - ) Electric review

A few years ago, the B10 would have looked like great value for money yet now there’s a host of well-known brands offering more style, useability and refinement for a similar price. Private buyers can take advantage of Leapmotor’s ‘Leap-Grant’ which reduces the price by £1,500 to match the lowest level of the government’s grant, but for a similar budget you could have a Skoda Elroq or the new Nissan Leaf on your driveway. The B10 should be affordable to run if you can charge at home on a dedicated EV tariff, though. Meanwhile, company car drivers will get the usual Benefit In Kind incentives for going electric.

Leapmotor is new to the UK, so we don’t know much about reliability yet. However, like the other models in Leapmotor’s range the B10 will be distributed via the dealers in the Stellantis network and sold alongside well-known names such as Vauxhall, Jeep, Peugeot and Citroën, which offers some reassurance. For extra peace of mind B10s will come with a four-year/60,000-mile warranty for the car and the battery gets its own eight-year cover.

The B10 has seven airbags and a grand total of 17 driver assistance systems which all come as standard. These include emergency braking, all-around parking sensors, a 360-degree camera, blind spot monitoring, door opening warnings and adaptive cruise control. Some are more useful than others, with the lane keeping assistance and drive attention monitoring being particularly intrusive. You can adjust the sensitivity, or turn these features off completely, but this and the rest of the car’s controls require interacting with the smartphone-like central touch-screen. It is very distracting to use whilst driving, even with customised widgets and shortcuts. The combination of swiping and jabbing takes your attention away from the road for way too long, which is reflected in our safety score.

The B10 makes good use of the space available with plenty of storage in the large door bins and storage cubbies. Up front all cars come with powered, heated and ventilated front seats and a heated steering wheel. In the back the rear space is generous with decent head- and legroom and a flat floor giving middle seat passengers extra room for their feet. The boot is reasonable with an adjustable floor height and a couple of integrated hooks, plus there's also some extra storage under the bonnet for things like cables. However, the boot isn’t as large or ingenious as the Skoda Elroq’s clever storage solutions. Our test car had a dark grey interior with faux-leather upholstery made of bamboo charcoal. This sets an austere tone and highlights the very cheap plastics, but the panoramic sunroof does at least brighten things up. Alternatively, there is a lighter interior option which looks marginally plusher. Out on the road the B10 has been set up for comfort with very soft suspension. This is fine over smooth surfaces but over lumps and bumps it wobbles around like a jelly. You sit high up in the car in a commanding driving position, and most people should be able to get comfy. That said, the steering wheel doesn’t adjust much for height or reach and the view out of the back is obstructed by the rear headrests.

There’s just one trim level with everything included so your only choice is which of the six paint colours to go for. There are the usual dull options of white, grey, silver and black but there’s also a standard dusky blue inspired by Vincent van Gogh and a deep purple which makes the B10 slightly more distinctive. Whichever vibe you choose you’ll get a plethora of features including a large central screen and an additional digital driver display, a sound system with 12 speakers, climate control, ambient lighting, wireless phone charging and a powered tailgate. This will be the first Leapmotor to have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto built-in – a welcome addition allowing you to bypass the integrated software. Rather than having a traditional key the B10 can be locked and unlocked using a Tesla-like card or the Leapmotor app on your phone. This also allows you to remotely set temperature, monitor charging or remind you where you parked the car. The B10 also comes with Vehicle-to-load (V2L) technology so can use the car to charge other electrical devices, which could be particularly useful on family camping trips.

There’s just one battery offered which officially provides up to 270 miles of range and all B10s come with a heat pump to help improve efficiency in colder weather. Leapmotor has given the B10 a sensible amount of power. It’s not fast by electric cars standards, but it does have enough power to comfortably get up to motorway speeds. There’s a selection of drive modes, regenerative braking levels and steering adjustments, but they are tricky to change in the touch-screen and they don’t significantly alter how the car feels to drive. The B10 is a heavy SUV and isn’t designed to be a lithe sports car. As such it wallows around corners and doesn’t encourage a more spirited approach. It’s best driven in a sedate fashion which should fit with the needs of most family buyers looking for something easy to live with.