Leapmotor B10 vs Mercedes-Benz EQS

What's the difference?

I’ll be a shame if the B10 doesn’t sell well, because it doesn’t suffer from many of the downfalls of its compatriots and its price is extremely competitive for what you get.

As a comfortable smallish SUV, it meets par, and it’s on the better side of tech when it comes to cars from China, and it doesn’t have any major on-road red flags.

You really wouldn’t be disappointed with this having paid $40K, just skip the base model and go for the Design.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

It’s unquestionably fast, certainly luxurious, but I’ll be honest, I don’t think the EQS is going to be for everyone. The styling will be challenging for some and the glittery interior tech offering might be a bit much, even for the more rusted-on Benz traditionalists.

Then again, shouldn't an electrified flagship be all about challenging the status quo, trying new ideas, and bringing new fans to the brand? If anything, I think that might be what the EQS does best.

Right after we praise the B10 for its value, we need to talk about its looks. A slight drop in tone as the second Leapmotor to land in Australia looks an awful lot like the first, and it’s relatively bland.

It’s not ugly, but it’s not particularly inspiring and there’s not much character to this little electric SUV.

It’s got a very upright silhouette at the front with a slightly sloping roofline at the rear, so the overall shape is appealing, but the lack of distinct features makes the B10 an anonymous commuter for now, especially with its similarities to the C10.

You can tell them apart by the C10’s slightly larger size if they’re near each other, or the B10’s more in-line headlight bar, where the C10’s have a ‘droop’ at the sides.

The large section of black at the lower half of the front is also unappealing, though darker colours like the optional 'Starry Night Blue' or 'Dawn Purple' (both $990) blend into it better than standard 'Light White'.

To its credit, at least the B10 doesn’t fall victim to the design crutch of adding trim and plastic for no reason.

In terms of the specifics, the B10 is 4515mm long, 1885mm wide and 1665mm tall with a 2735mm wheelbase, making it quite the large small SUV.

Inside, the cabin looks and feels roomy thanks to the test car’s light interior, decent windows and the light from the sunroof, as well as the fact the EV powertrains are compact and generally don’t interfere with cabin space.

Materials aren’t all scratchy hard plastic, though it is dotted around, and the general look of the B10 inside feels more premium than its price would have you thinking, despite the simplicity of the layout and design.

We’re going to start with design, because from the outset it is a topic which simply must be addressed.

Mercedes has flipped the script when it comes to its next-generation design language worn by its dedicated range of ‘EQ’ electric cars. It follows a trend we’re seeing across the industry of larger, more amorphous vehicles which need the space to accommodate batteries, but also the aerodynamic traits to extend driving range and keep energy efficiency as high as possible.

The issue when it comes to the EQS is it essentially puts the iconic S-Class shape, refined over generations, in the bin, and replaces it with something a bit more challenging to the eye.

Gone are the angles, louvres, and deeply three-dimensional grilles, replaced by sleek rounded edges, wheels which reach to the very edges of the chassis, a blank, almost plasticky grille and a more liftback-like profile than one of a traditional sedan.

You’d better get used to it, too, because the smaller EQE is near identical in shape, a trend which will no doubt continue across other EQ models.

It’s the finer details that add character, particularly for the 53 with its AMG-leanings. The lack of shapeliness down the side makes the massive 22-inch wheels stand out more, and the rear three-quarter might be this car’s best angle, with a colour-matching spoiler flicking up off the small bootlid, and delicate badgework illustrating this car’s place in the world. Our car, which appeared in a silver shade timeless on Mercedes-Benz models, made the black AMG highlights on the front and rear bumpers shine, and some of the usual Benz shape is claimed back through the EQS’s LED light profile, both at the front and rear.

There’s no doubt it’s a step into the future, and an overall shape which is a marriage of both form and function. While looks are always subjective, I still think it may be a hard sell, even to some of the most committed fans of Mercedes design.

Getting into the B10 requires a minor annoyance - unlocking and locking the car requires a keycard to be tapped on the drivers’ side mirror like you're scanning to access your floor in a hotel elevator.

There’s an app that adds a fair bit of functionality, but having to whip your phone out ahead of jumping in the car is also irritating.

Once you’re in, though, the space inside the B10 is well laid-out, even if much of its functionality is crammed into the big central touchscreen - it’s always ‘points off’ for a lack of physical buttons in this section of a review.

Once you’re used to it and have sorted out your personal settings on the multimedia software, it becomes more natural and less distracting, though Apple CarPlay and Android Auto would occasionally lag in the car on test.

The good news is they now exist for the brand in the B10, with the Leapmotor C10 still lacking the vital in-car mirroring tech.

The ergonomics and interior space work well, generally, with comfortable pews and good vision, plus decent spaces to keep things out of the way. The phone charger being in a very visible and accessible position might tempt some naughty screen-keen drivers, and being in the sun without a vent for cooling while charging means your phone will get proper hot.

The second row is extremely spacious, belying the fact this car is classified as a small SUV. Oodles of legroom and enough headroom for a tall adult means the B10 outguns rivals in terms of good options for parents (note the B10’s extremely strong 95 per cent child safety score from ANCAP, too) or anyone who needs to cart humans around regularly.

Behind the second row is a 490L boot, which becomes 1475L when the second row is folded down.

There’s space under the floor for cables and messy bits, but unfortunately no spare wheel, just a tyre repair kit, so more points off for that.

The EQS is enormous, so it’s a good thing there’s huge amounts of interior space, even for what is ostensibly an S-Class, and with its bespoke electrified underpinnings, it also scores the kinds of innovations we like to see from electric cars.

These include things like a huge cutaway under the floating dash for extra storage, which the brand has seen fit to add elastic tie-downs so your objects don’t go flying in corners!

Storage up front is otherwise excellent with decent bins in the doors with height-limited sections for bottles, a flip open tray which houses the wireless charger and a set of fold-away bottle holders, and split-opening armrest console box which is deep and features yet another set of USB-C outlets.

Adjustability is great for front passengers, but ergonomically I found something a little weird about the digital dash. For me to rest my arms and hold the wheel, I had to set it so low the top of the wheel obscured the instruments, and if I set it high enough to see the full cluster, to comfortably hold the wheel my elbows would need to float above the armrests. Weird.

It doesn’t end there for the entirely touch-based controls either. While the (admittedly very cool-looking) wheel is packed full of buttons and touch sliders, they require near-surgical precision to operate with your thumbs, distracting while you’re driving, and the enormous centre screen’s main drawback is the fact CarPlay, for example, was not designed for the buttons and functions on the far left to be a metre away from where the driver’s hand is. Again, it’s distracting to have to lean out of your seat to hit the ‘back’ button on most context menus.

I would like to tell you at this point the Mercedes-Benz menus are mercifully simple to aid you with such an overwhelming system, but this isn’t true either. For some reason, there’s a ‘vehicle settings’ menu accessed easily through the main panel, or another menu with a separate set of key functions activated by a car-shaped shortcut button on the floating console. Why? Why aren’t these menus the same? I discovered this in my attempts to use the ‘raise vehicle’ function when faced with a steep driveway. You’re going to need to use this function often in a car measuring over 5.2 metres long, so hiding it in a confusing menu is an interesting choice.

The back seat is where the EQS should shine, and in terms of space it’s stellar. I can barely touch the seat in front of me when set to my own (182cm tall) driving position. It comes with some soft pillows which attach to the headrests, the sunroof extends back there nicely while not impeding on the great headroom, and the lavish trims all continue into the doors and seat bases, too.

The drop-down armrest has a trick pop-out bottle holder in it, and there are a further two on the doors. Amenity-wise rear passengers score four adjustable air vents with two climate zones adjusted via their own touch-panel, but I was interested to see there was a lack of screens back there.

This is particularly notable as most S-Classes are bought to be driven in rather than to drive, and the screens are so much in the front, I was expecting a matching offering for rear travellers. Not so.

You also can’t adjust the rear seats at all, and unlike some EVs coming out in this space, there’s no recliner mode for the full business-class experience.

The boot is much larger than in the smaller EQE, with the EQS making use of its extended dimensions nicely. The floor is fully flat, and has a secret compartment underneath for the storage of both your included Type 2 to Type 2 public AC charging cable, and Type 2 to wall-socket converter for garage charging.

With a total space of 580 litres, the EQS comfortably consumed our entire CarsGuide luggage set with space to spare.

At a whopping $328,400 before you start ticking options boxes or apply the necessary on-road costs, the EQS 53 is at the pointy end of the price scale, even for an electric car.

Dig a little deeper though, and there are some surprises. For example; this top-spec EQS still manages to be more affordable than the top-spec combustion S-Class ($335,100) and when compared to its rival from Porsche, the Taycan Turbo S ($351,000), it comes out with a cost-advantage.

It is significantly more expensive than BMW’s electric flagship, the upcoming i7 sedan, which starts at $297,900 before on-roads for the xDrive60.

Still, falling between BMW’s core EV offering and the Porsche Taycan is a fitting sweet-spot for our Mercedes EQS.

Equipment is out-of-this world, with the EQS not only having ridiculous performance figures we’ll talk about later, but also standard four-wheel steer, all-wheel drive, adaptive suspension, full leather interior trim with multi-way adjust for the front seats, complete with heating, cooling, and several message programs.

It also has the (again, completely over-the-top) 1.4-meter long MBUX ‘Hyperscreen’, which is made up of two large screens for the instrument cluster and passenger touchscreen, as well as an enormous centre panel for the climate and multimedia functions, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity with matching wireless phone charging bay, augmented reality sat-nav, a panoramic sunroof, LED headlights, LED interior lights with selectable RGB settings, and an auto tailgate.

Enough stuff for you? Wait! Says Mercedes, there’s more! The Dynamic Plus package ($7690) boosts performance even more and adds an extended cooling system and launch mode, an aesthetic Night Package ($3990) which adds mainly black and chrome trim pieces as well as 22-inch wheels, ceramic composite brake package ($9990), augmented reality head-up system ($2690) and a wall box home charger ($1450).

Plenty for buyers to work with then. For now though, they’ll only be able to choose the top-spec AMG-tinged 53 version, as lower grades are yet to arrive in Australia. It will be the same for the smaller but near-identically specified EQE 53 when it arrives in Australia, so the message is pay big or go home to get on the latest EQ tech early.

There’s only one powertrain option for the Leapmotor B10, a single, rear-mounted electric motor that produces 160kW and 240Nm, which makes the electric SUV good for a claimed 0-100km/h time of 8.0 seconds in both variants.

Top speed is a claimed 170km/h, also regardless of the variant.

In the electric era, do performance figures matter? AMG would argue a resounding ‘yes’ although I would argue the art for premium automakers like Mercedes is now in producing suspension setups that can handle the weight of batteries.

Regardless, the EQS has a dual-motor setup, capable of providing a whopping 484kW/950Nm in its standard form, or an even more incredible 560kW/1020Nm with the Dynamic Plus package. Look, you’re spending over $328,000 already, what’s an extra $8k or so to put pretty much any other four-wheeled object in your rear-vision mirror? With the Dynamic Package, a sprint time of 3.4 seconds is… brutal.

The four-wheel drive system is necessary to keep all that power under control. While some enthusiasts may be turned-off by the four-wheel steer function, I’d read on to the driving section to see why it’s not only worth having (try turning a 5.2-meter long sedan around without it) but also not as intrusive as you think it’s going to be in the corners.

Leapmotor claims the B10 will, from its LFP battery of either 56.2kWh for the Style or 67.1kWh for the Design LR, draw 17.2kWh/100km or 17.3kWh/100km, respectively under WLTP testing.

The result is the Style offering up a 361km WLTP-tested driving range, and the Design LR a more useful 434km.

While we were unable to properly confirm this claim on the launch, the trip computer after a mix of highway driving and more spirited back-road testing displayed a figure of 13.5kWh/100km, while the previous 1447km of driving had reportedly measured in at 14.7kWh.

Charging from 30 to 80 per cent takes approximately 20 minutes regardless of spec and battery size. The smaller battery can be charged via DC fast-charging at a maximum 140kW, and the larger at 168kW. Both max out at 11kW under AC charging.

Even at the official energy consumption of 23kWh/100km, the EQS’ drivetrain is essentially the electric equivalent of wielding a massive V8 under the hood. It’s not by any measure impressive, but then, with 107.8kWh of lithium batteries under the floor, it’s perhaps impressive it’s not worse than an Audi e-tron, particularly since the EQS weighs in at nearly three tonnes.

The battery is one of the largest on the market in Australia, offering the EQS a driving range of 585km on the WLTP cycle. Very impressive.

On the charging front, the EQS can charge at up to 200kW on DC thanks to an advanced cooling system, and on AC charges at 11kW in its stock form or 22kW with an optional $2490 upgrade. Again, at $328k, why wouldn’t you want the best charging system you can get for so little extra?

You can also package in a Mercedes-Benz branded wallbox for your home garage, valued at $1450 before installation costs.

To give you an idea of charging times: Expect a little over two hours (from 10 per cent) on a common 50kW DC public charger, nearly ten hours from an 11kW AC public charger, and a number not even worth mentioning from a home wall socket.

The Leapmotor B10 was developed with testing at Stellantis’ European proving ground in Italy. This is because despite Leapmotor being its own brand within China, its international operations are a joint-venture between itself and Stellantis.

There are some on-paper shreds of evidence for this, a rear-wheel drive layout and a claimed 50/50 weight distribution help, but get the B10 on the road and it’s clear this isn’t a car that’s relying entirely on price, a long list of features and some showroom shine to sell.

After the initial familiarisation that comes with many new electric cars, particularly from China, the Leapmotor B10 becomes easy to settle into a rhythm with, especially if you turn off some of its more intrusive ADAS features like lane-keep, driver monitoring and speed limit warning. The latter can sometimes get a limit wrong, and though the B10’s chimes aren’t audibly overbearing, they are persistent.

While the B10 doesn’t excel in any areas on the road, it doesn’t fall down significantly in any either.

Its suspension soaks up bumps relatively well, and despite some vibrations on rougher roads the B10 is pretty comfortable. The tyres it rides on as standard, however, are rather noisy, so if there’s an opportunity to swap out the Linglong defaults to something better, we’d advise it.

The tyres also squeal rather quickly when cornering, not necessarily because the B10 is about to let go, but just because the weight of the car appears to be pushing on the front outside tyre in cornering.

The B10 holds up better than\ a family car really needs to in dynamic driving, but we wouldn’t be doing mountain runs or track days in one. 

There’s a little body roll in corners, but not nearly as much as has been in other models riding on the apparently soft suspension preferred in China.

The steering, braking and acceleration all have a mild vagueness to them, but once you’re honed in they’re all predictable. The steering can be adjusted for weight, and its lightest setting is too light, while the acceleration feels lethargic in its lowest setting and too aggressive in its highest.

There’s not a lot of regenerative braking strength, but it’s enough to help regulate speed once you’re used to how mildly it comes in - again, depending on your preferences and settings.

The good news here is that the B10 is easy to drive, and only very serious road bumps on fast corners unsettled it on test - the kind you’d expect to upset any car.

The EQS is quite surreal to drive, and you’ll notice a whole bunch of odd things first.

Immediately the driving position will be surprising. It’s nothing like what a traditional sedan feels like. This is because you sit high in the EQS. This helps facilitate extra under-floor space for the batteries, but the way Benz puts it, this driving position is deliberately SUV-like to grant buyers the more desirable view of the road which they now (apparently) seek.

It has some oddities, as mentioned earlier, with the fixed digital instrument cluster, and the way the wheel can block it depending on your height, but on the whole I found visibility in the EQS to be pretty good, despite limitations out the distant rear window.

Sound-wise AMG has created a bespoke soundscape for its electric models, two soundscapes, in fact. One sounds like a facsimile of a distant, digitised, V8 (weird) while the other is a bit more sci-fi. I can’t decide which one I really like, but props to the brand for thinking of individual sounds for things like accelerating, regenerative braking, as well as turning the car off and on. There’s even a humming tone for when the car is idling. 

AMG says “it doesn’t work without sound” and I suppose it does add some sort of feedback to the experience which would otherwise be missing. I’d rather have it than not I suppose is the take-away here.

The acceleration is completely over-the-top in Sport or Sport+, allowing you to move such a large vehicle forward in an almost comically quick fashion. It has the sudden urge of a Tesla, but with an element of grace that follows courtesy of the adaptive suspension which, not only settles the ride, but keeps the car comfortable.

It is the suspension though which sets cars like the EQS (and even rivals from BMW) apart from the likes of Tesla. The ride in the EQS is superb, befitting the heir apparent to the S-Class throne. It’s hard to find a ride so void of issues, particularly in the everyday Comfort drive-mode. It’s not just the fact I can’t complain about brutality from this car’s oversized 22-inch wheels, but also there has clearly been delicate work conducted to control the rebound, body-roll, and jiggle which can occur as a result of moving around a near-three-tonne chunk of aluminium, steel, lithium and leather at enthusiastic speeds.

This settled ride combines gloriously with the four-wheel steer system to make the EQS a keen corner carver, despite gravity constantly working against it.

I was surprised to find the four-wheel steer system to be pretty much identical in feel to the system also employed in the EQE and new C43, in that it is unobtrusive to the overall feel of the car, only helping to add a little extra turn-in to the corners when need be.

In a vehicle as long as the EQS it’s a bit more noticeable, and requires a moment of brain-adjustment, as the car (bizarrely) goes exactly where you point it, requiring no over- or under-adjustments, the grip from the enormously capable four-wheel drive system refusing to let any shift under sensible driving conditions. 

So, it’s comfortable enough to be an S-Class, fast enough to be an AMG, but I must say there is something a bit clinical about how it attacks the road. Missing some of theAMG drama we’ve become so used to from the brand’s combustion range, perhaps?

The S-Class has always been a safety leader, and it appears the EQS is no different.

On the active front expect Autobahn-speed auto emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane departure warning with lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic alert, traffic sign recognition and driver monitoring.

The Mercedes semi-autonomous adaptive cruise control suite is just as good (perhaps better in some areas like distance control) as the stuff from Tesla in my experience, and this car also had a notably comprehensive 360-degree parking camera which is brilliant enough to show you the top-down and full rear view cameras all in one screen.

The EQS is yet to be officially rated by our local crash authority, ANCAP, but it received a maximum five-star Euro NCAP safety rating in 2021.

The B10’s post-purchase prospects are generally solid, though Leapmotor’s six-year, 160,000km warranty is an area where it falls short of rivals which are offering longer, unlimited kilometre warranties.

The battery is covered for eight years or 180,000km, whichever comes first, which is pretty par for an EV.

Servicing is capped-price for the first eight years, with each service costing $370 on average. The eight-year span makes it pretty appealing, per 12-month interval or every 20,000km.

There are currently 20 dealers across the country, though more are coming, while Leapmotor also offers eight years of roadside service.

Like many electric cars, the warranty on the EQS is twofold. Firstly, there is the whole vehicle warranty, which from Mercedes-Benz is five years and unlimited kilometres, but the high-voltage battery is covered by a separate, and quite healthy, ten-year, 250,000km promise.

Benz throws in a three-year subscription to ChargeFox, offering owners free charging for the duration (to give you an idea, it cost me about $30 to charge the EQS to nearly full from 20 or so per cent).

Service intervals are surprisingly standard, at 12 months and 15,000km, and the EQS’ pre-paid service program is $1750 for three years, $2750 for four years, or $3250 for five-years, working out to about $650 a year. Far from the cheapest we’ve seen for an EV, but chump change for owners considering the up-front cost of this vehicle.