Leapmotor B10 2026 review: International first drive

Remember Blade, Marvel’s daywalking vampire hunter with all of his enemy’s strengths and none of their weaknesses? No? Just me?

Either way, my superhero point here is that is exactly what Leapmotor is trying to achieve with its B10 electric small SUV, which promises all of the strengths of a Chinese car (sharp pricing, heaps of equipment, solid battery tech and plenty of value) without — and I’m generalising here — the biggest weakness when it comes to most vehicles from the People's Republic, which is a drive experience wrapped in big, soft, depressing blanket of beige.

The B10, says Leapmotor, has leant heavily on joint-venture-partner Stellantis’ European roots to deliver a Chinese car that doesn’t drive like a Chinese car. It was tested and tuned at the group’s Balocco Proving Ground in Italy, for example. It also delivers a perfect 50:50 weight distribution and has its electric motor (160kW and 240Nm) mounted at the rear axle for sportier-feeling rear-wheel drive.

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And it is definitely, undeniably true that all of that has improved the drive experience. While no sports car (nor does it have to be in this segment), the B10 feels competent and composed in most conditions, and doesn’t feel like it has given up on life in the twistier stuff, either. The steering in its lightest setting is pretty vague and disinterested, but I found it to be competent and largely composed on everything I tackled in it, and I like the firmer nature of its suspension tune this time around, too.

It’s just unfortunate that Leapmotor forgot about that other nagging weakness so prolific in most modern vehicles – an active safety suite so squawkingly, squealingly annoying that you have to switch it off every time you get in the car. Leapmotor is hardly on an island with this, but honestly the active safety gear here is very, very hard to live with – even Leapmotor concedes much of it is "annoying" but a regulatory necessity. Happily, it can be shut down, but it's something you have to do every time you get in.

The B10 will lob in Australia later this year in two trim levels, both with drive-away pricing. The range begins with the Style, which is $38,990 and then tops out with the Design, which is $41,990. That pricing will make it one of the cheapest electric SUVs in Australia. And yes, I’m covering all bases here because things are changing so fast with EV pricing that there’s no way of knowing what the scene will look like when the B10 touches down.

It kicks off with the Style, for which your not-very-much spend earns you 18-inch alloy wheels, LED lighting, a glass roof with a sunshade and pop-out door handles. Inside, there’s a 14.6-inch central screen, an 8.8-inch digital dashboard, a six-speaker stereo, a wireless charging pad and a built-in dash cam.

Then there’s the Design, or Long Range, which gets a bigger battery and a better driving range. It also adds synthetic leather seats now electronically controlled for driver and passenger, heated and cooled front seats and a heated steering wheel, a LED light bar at the rear, and automatic wipers. There’s also a 12-speaker stereo, a powered tailgate and ambient interior lighting at this level, too.

Critically, the Design also swaps out the Style’s 56.2kWh LFP battery (good for a claimed 361km on the WLTP cycle) for a bigger 67.1kWh unit which ups the range to a far-more-liveable 434km.

There’s also a difference in charging, with the smaller battery good for 140kW DC fast charging, while the bigger battery ups that to 168kW — which means 30 to 80 per cent in less then 20 minutes. AC charging is up to 11kW on both models, too.

That’s a lot of extra driving and extra stuff for three grand, and I know which one I’d be choosing.

The B10 is about 4.5m long, 1.8m wide and 1.6m tall, and the focus, Leapmotor says, is to make this small SUV feel big on the inside. In fact, the brand promises “one of the largest passenger spaces in its segment”, which, yes, sounds a little vague, but there really is a decent amount of room in the back to stretch out.

I’m 175cm, and I could get pretty comfortable in terms of both leg and headroom. The boot is decent, too, with 430 litres on offer with the seats in place. That grows to more like 1700 litres with the seats folded flat.

All of which is the good. The bad? As mentioned, the safety stuff really is diabolical. Interestingly, Leapmotor talks about the improvements made for this B10 (which have also been delivered to the C10 via an over-the-air update), but they’re still unliveable.

The big central screen looks fancy, and is fast in its operation, but it’s still confusingly clunky in places and, given it controls just about every vehicle function, you’ll be spending a lot of time with it. The other quirk is the digital driver display, which is small, and positioned in a way that hides the key info everytime you turn the wheel.

And the cabin looks lovely, with its boxy design language and detailing in the dash, but it doesn’t feel it, with hard plastics used liberally.

There’s also a solid, but not spectacular, six-year and 150,000km warranty on offer (eight years for the battery) and a sharp intro offer on servicing (that expires October 31) which will give you three years of capped-price servicing for $200.

Still, the B10 makes a hugely convincing value argument in its segment, and quirks aside, shows a Chinese brand moving in the right direction.