I'll be honest, I cannot keep up with the various Chinese brands that are entering our market and I'm in the motoring space, so I can only imagine how the general consumer feels. It's like over the last year, there's just been a sudden influx of brands that we have never heard of popping up. Some are affiliated or are sub-brands of well known Chinese manufacturers that have a really good footprint and some are just totally new. For my first test car of 2026, I had one of the latest brands give me a car to spend some time with, and it was from "Leapmotor". Founded in 2015 in Hangzhou China, they are now the third largest new energy vehicle startup in China, having sold over 400,000 EV's in China as of July 2024. So over year has passed since that last stat, so that number has grown exponentially since then. The Financial Times calls them a "no-frills" EV maker", with offerings cheaper than their Chinese counterparts BYD which helped them gain market share in China, catching the likes of Tesla and soon BYD. Now while the SA market is still getting accustomed to the Chinese offerings, let alone EV's, Leapmotor which is partly owned by leading global automobile group Stellantis, they've taken the decision to introduce the C10 REEV, which is a petrol hybrid model medium SUV to the market. Offering locals a test of their EV technology but the safety net of a range extender petrol engine. After spending a week with the car, here are my thoughts on this latest addition to our market.
DESIGN
When the C10 cruised into my driveway, I was surprised at the size of it, as I was expecting something a bit smaller, sort of the Corolla Cross size but this was substantially bigger, about the size of the Audi Q5, if not a bit bigger. The clean design reminded me of the Geely which I saw late last year of which the lines are similar but with their own added flair. There aren't many ridges or edges but rather smooth flowing panels with subtle and soft curves that make the car look futuristic and elegant. It is a handsome looking car, I cannot deny that, the front LED headlights sit recessed into the front facia almost making it look like it was carved into the the body work. The slim grille that connects the two headlamps provides a subtle break in the body work with a straight edge difusser to make the front face more pronounced. There is a curvature to the bumper that folds into the body which just adds more character. The profile of the car is sleek with recessed door handles that continue the minimalist look with a black badge protruding from the front just above the wheel arch with the Leapmotor branding on it. The 20-inch multi-spoke alloy wheels are standard on the "Design" version of the C10 are really eye-catching. The rear is more of what you expect, clean, smooth and a solid light bar that runs across the back with a design very similar to that of the Porsche Cayenne. In fact, at a quick glance of the rear, some might mistake it for the German sports SUV.
PERFORMANCE
While Leapmotor are known for their EV's in China, the C10 REEV is a PHEV, meaning it has an electric plug in motor as well as an internal combustion engine but while most PHEV's use the electric motor as a slave with the master being the ICE, with the C10 its the opposite. If you have enough charge, it will use the electric motor for most part of your drive. Hence giving you a total range with a full tank of fuel and fully battery of 970km! The switch over from petrol to electric is seamless and only can be felt on the highway when extra power is required where the all too familiar groan of the CVT kicks in. The dual power plants are broken into a 158kW electric motor that punches our which is rear wheel driven that has a 28.4kwh battery and gives you a pure electric range of 145km on a full charge. The ICE part of the car sits up front with a 1.5L naturally aspirated 4-cylinder engine that has 63kW and 125Nm of torque, this is the sort of engine you'd find in a small C-Segment car. It has a 50L petrol tank so quite big but don't ask me how to open the fuel car for it as I'll explain that further in the next paragraph. The vehicle feels solid and steady on the road, with minimal body roll and extremely smooth on most surfaces. The steering wheel is light and rear active making easy work of controlling this big car on the road. I didn't take it on any gravel road but I feel with its raised suspension and big profile tyres, it would make light work of it.
COMFORT
The C10 is big, its spacious, its futuristic and most importantly, its comfortable. Like most of the Chinese cars, the brief for the interior seems to be standard "Big infotainment screen in excess of 10-inches, small instrument screen behind the steering wheel, little to no buttons, and floating center console with hard to reach USB ports". I get the whole futuristic thing but there's certain things about the C10 that annoyed me, a lot. For starters, the key, its an NFC card that only unlocked and locks the car from the driver side mirror. It had no proximity sensor which also means that there isn't comfort access for opening the tailgate when you are carrying a lot of things in your hands. With the cover on the car, it also made it tricky to get the card to read on the mirror. Once in the car, the second thing that annoyed me, was adjusting the side mirrors, no physical buttons meant going into the menu on the massive display screen, when you eventually find the sub-menu to adjust the mirrors, you have to use the little dials on the steering wheel to move the mirrors on either side. Extremely frustrating especially when you are trying to do this while driving. Then comes the climate control, works like a charm, dispelling even Durban's harsh humid conditions but when you want to change the direction of the airflow, you met with another conundrum, there isn't any physical lourves to adjust, how do you do it? Yes, you guessed it, its on that magic big screen, granted this one was much easier to access and it was pretty cool to just move your finger to show which direction you want the the air to go but all of that doesn't compare to the biggest gripe I have with the car, THERE IS NO MOBILE APPLICATIONS! Yes, no Apple Car Play, no Android Auto! in 2026?! Really?!!!! Well enough of the complaining, lets talk about the nice things, the seats were ultra comfy and have heating and ventilation, the ambient lighting is subtle and has a nice "rhythm" feature which changes colour to the beat of the music you are listening too. The electric seats are quite nice to use and easy to save for driver memory. The panoramic roof is large and the tint lets in the light without the heat. The driving safety sensors are not as pedantic as the other Chinese cars. The infotainment screen is easy to use and the vehicle menu gives you quite a comprehensive breakdown on the driving stats but I wish it had a graphic to show you when you are using the electric motor and when you are using the petrol engine.
VERDICT
For it's first model to hit the roads in South Africa, the C10 REEV is a decent offering, the thing that will appeal to most is the range of the car. 970km is quite impressive and the overall package is nice apart from those few grips I shared about, but I realised I forgot two more, to start the car, you need to place the NFC card on the wireless charging mat while pushing on the break, while it worked most of the time, some times I found myself fighting with the car to start. The car has a premium feel to it which I loved, the design is different to what we are used to and looks more on the sophisticated side instead of being brash and in your face. The drive is great and I'm sure on long distances it will perform extremely well. While some in the industry said they feel this car was rushed, I think it was just short-sightedness from the brand to not see what the local market liked and adapted that to their offering but they rather chose to just give us what they think we wanted, or hoped we would ignore those short-comings with some fancy things. The price tag for this model is quite high, with it being just shy of 800K, so it's hard to ignore those factors when you are paying European money for something coming out of China.
SPECIFICATIONS
| Engine | 1.5L N/A 4 cylinder +28.4kWh electric motor |
| Automatic CVT | |
Power | 158kW + 63kW |
Torque | 320Nm + 125Nm |
Average Fuel Consumption | 6.1L per 100km (as tested) |
R799,900 |
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