What is it?
Yet another small electric SUV, adding more choices to the sea of similarly-sized models already on sale. Don’t switch off just yet though, because Leapmotor reckons its latest (and smallest) SUV to date might be one of the best value.
If you’ve not heard of Leapmotor, it’s another new Chinese brand – I know, shocker. What makes Leapmotor a bit different is that it’s partly owned by the same company as Vauxhall, Citroen and Peugeot, and is sold alongside them in their UK dealers.
The B03X fits in towards the bottom of its range, just below the Qashqai-sized B10, and starts at a competitive (though perhaps not bargain) price of £26,995 after a £1,500 ‘Leap Grant’.
What’s new?
Given that Leapmotor itself isn’t that old, you could argue that most of the B03X is new. But really, it shares rather a lot with the existing B10 – though that car itself only arrived a few months ago.
It gets roughly the same platform as its bigger brother, but has been shortened a tad and given a smaller battery pack, as befits a lower-priced car. The electric motor has also been moved to the front, which is a sensible move to free up a bit more boot space.
What’s under the bonnet?
Leapmotor likes to keep things simple, so there’s only one powertrain on offer in the UK: a single electric motor with 194bhp, which should be more than powerful enough for a pint-sized car like this. 0-60mph takes 8.6 seconds, which is passable, but not all that quick for a car with nearly 200bhp.
Battery-wise, there’s a 53kWh pack with 237 miles of range – that’s 10 miles behind than a Renault 4, despite the Leapmotor’s bigger capacity. It’ll rapid charge at 133kW, so gets a theoretic 30 to 80 per cent charge time of 16 minutes, and is capable of 3.3kW Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) for powering things like a kettle while camping.
What’s it like to drive?
Let’s start with the positives: it’s very comfortable, with almost limo-like levels of suppleness from its suspension. If you spend the majority of your time making short journeys at low speeds, the B03X could be mistaken for having quite a luxurious ride.
Overall though, it’s a bit hopeless. Fitting soft suspension might seem like a great idea for our pothole-lined roads, but the B03X seems to have lost all control of its chassis as a result. It can’t help but wobble and roll around all over the place – even at very sedate speeds – and driving over bumps or manhole covers seems to make the whole car sway and shimmy for a long time after each impact.
Cars we drove also struggled for grip at times: squealing around corners and roundabouts even at 20mph, and spinning up their front tyres under moderate acceleration. Given that we drove in dry, 35-degree sunshine in the south of Spain, that doesn’t bode particularly well for how the B03X might cope on a rainy October morning here in the UK.
This, combined with the aggressive amount of pitch and roll in corners, mean it’s far from confidence-inspiring behind the wheel. We found the B10 drove in quite a similar manner, so it’s disappointing that Leapmotor hasn’t really learned any lessons for this new model.
How does it look?
Would it be unkind to say the B03X looks like every other small SUV on sale? There’s hints of Citroen C3 Aircross, Mini Countryman, Vauxhall Frontera, BYD Atto 2, you name it – though to be fair none of those are particularly original in design either.
Leapmotor has at least had some fun with the details, so you’ll find ‘Leap’ text in a funky font embedded on various exterior parts, and rear lamps that look like a self-satisfied emoji. Then there’s the new mascot, ‘Leapy’, a sort of ninja shaped like a pillowcase, who pops up in various mouldings around the cabin. He’s strictly set in plastic for now though, with no digital assistant version of him within the infotainment.
What’s it like inside?
Pretty good, on the whole. Leapmotor is generally quite good at making a cheap car feel posher than it is, and that’s the case here too.
It’s a pleasant place to sit, with a nice airy ambiance, and lashings of somewhat convincing fake leather. The dash is smartly designed, and everything feels reassuringly well built. On the face of it, it’s a more premium-feeling cabin than a Citroen C3 or a Vauxhall Frontera.
Space is very impressive, with easily enough leg and head room for four tall adults. Seats are all very plush and supple to sit on, almost like an old Mercedes S-Class, though lumbar adjustment for the driver would be a helpful addition.
Boot space is good as well, with easily space for two cabin suitcases in the ‘normal’ area, and a cavernous additional (and waterproof) space available by lifting up the floor. Leapmotor has been copying the Honda Jazz’s homework too – at the pull of a lever the B03X’s rear seat bases flip up, allowing you to carry taller items like potted plants in the back of the car.
There are some annoyances though, like no physical switches for the climate control, electric mirrors, ADAS systems and so on – and while there are plenty of buttons on the steering wheel, the icons on them are almost invisible to the naked eye.
What’s the spec like?
Here in the UK there’s just the one trim level, which is effectively the top-spec version in the rest of the world. That means all B03X models are positively loaded with kit as standard.
Heated seats, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with a regular sat nav are all included, as is a 10-speaker stereo upgrade. The B03X also gets various connected car features, letting you pre-heat or cool the cabin remotely, and Leapmotor throws in a heat pump as standard too when many manufacturers don’t.
In the centre of the dash is a 14.6-inch infotainment display which, typically for a Chinese car, looks perfectly fine but isn’t terribly easy to use. It’s logical enough in terms of menus, but the permanent icons along the bottom for climate control, maps and so on are simply too small to reliably prod while the car is in motion.
The alternative is to talk to the car’s voice assistant, but unfortunately it’s beyond useless. Our car had some serious software issues that meant it simply chatted back and forth to itself for two minutes, getting stuck in a doom loop of listening to, and not understanding, its own voice. That’s not really acceptable in this day and age, when similarly-priced cars like the Renault 4 get the excellent Google Assistant and Gemini built in.
Verdict
There’s plenty to like about the B03X, with a seriously spacious and comfortable interior, clever storage spaces and generous amounts of equipment as standard.
That makes it all the more unfortunate that Leapmotor hasn’t learned anything from its European sister brands about how to make a car drive properly. The B03X’s lack of composure is likely to grate on even the most sedate of drivers.
With a few, but not insubstantial, changes under the skin, this could be one of the most competitive small electric SUVs on sale. But as it stands, a Renault 4 does pretty much everything better, and thanks to the current £3,750 government EV grant, is actually cheaper than the B03X to buy.
- Model as tested: Leapmotor B03X
- Price as tested: £26,995 (after £1,500 ‘Leap grant’)
- Engine: Single electric motor
- Power: 194bhp
- Torque: 200Nm
- Max speed: 99mph
- 0-60mph: 8.6 seconds
- Battery: 53kWh
- Range: 237 miles (WLTP)
