Over 15,000 orders for the B10 were apparently secured within the first hour since pre-sale began.
While still not exactly a household name over here even nearly a year after its local debut, Leapmotor nevertheless appears to have better fortunes back in its home market. Such is as the Stellantis-backed Chinese upstart automaker has recently announced that it already secured over 31,688 orders for its new B10 e-SUV, and this was just in the first 48 hours since the pre-sales began on March 10th!
In fact, Leapmotor has touted that it secured over 15,000 bookings within the first hour of when the order books were first open. And without beating around the bush here, a very large part of why everyone is clamouring for one in China is because the B10 is the first in the EV industry to feature LiDAR in a product priced as low as 130,000 yuan (RM 80,000).
Leapmotor’s B10 is currently available for order in China in five trim levels, with prices ranging from 109,800 – 139,800 yuan (RM 67,000 – RM 86,000). Only two trim levels of this all-electric SUV are to be offered with the LiDAR sensor, and it is incidentally the 510 LiDAR Self-Driving variant that has since emerged as the most popular variant, accounting for 73% of total pre-orders.
The roof-mounted LiDAR system in the B10 is to be supplied by Hesai Technology, which incidentally also supplies to fellow Chinese automaker Li Auto. Leapmotor previously touted during the reveal of this e-SUV that the resulting enhanced ADAS suite from this additional sensing unit is said to support up to 26 smart-driving features, including smart parking or avoiding obstacles on the road.
In discussing more about the rest of the car meanwhile, the B10 comes in at 4,515 mm in length, 1,885 mm in width and 1,655 mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,735 mm. Or to put it in another way, despite the B in its name, this e-SUV is actually about the same size as a Proton X70.
Looks-wise, the Leapmotor B10 is pretty much a C10 that was sent through the photocopier at 85%. It features the same slightly blobby silhouette as its larger sibling, with LED light bars on both ends and some way-too-sporty-looking multi-spoke alloy wheels in the middle.
Moving on within, a 14.6-inch floating central touchscreen takes centre stage on the B10’s minimalist and straight-edged dashboard, while an 8.8-inch fully-digital LCD instrument cluster is situated behind a two-spoke D-shaped steering wheel. Among the other features worth highlighting within this e-SUV includes twin wireless charging pads on the centre console, a 1.83 m² panoramic sunroof, a 12-speaker sound system, as well as anchor points on the passenger side of the dashboard which can be used for attaching a folding table.
Entry-level B10s come powered by a single rear-mounted electric motor with a peak output of 177 hp and 175 Nm of torque, which is in turn capable of accelerating this e-SUV from 0 to 100 km/h in a reasonable 9.3 seconds. The more premium variants in turn have a slightly hotter motor that delivers 214 hp and 240 Nm of torque, reducing the century sprint time to 6.8 seconds.
Two sizes of LFP batteries are currently available with the B10: a 56.2 kWh unit capable of a CLTC-claimed 510 km of range for the three lower-tier trims, and a 67.1 kWh unit that quotes a 600 km range for the two higher-end variants. Leapmotor touts that the new Leap 3.5 architecture that is making its debut in this e-SUV supports 800 V high-voltage fast charging, which hence enables the battery to recharge from a 30% to 80% level in about 20 minutes.
Leapmotor currently aims to sell 40,000 B-series units every month, surpassing its C-series. And if industry rumours are to be believed, this B10 will indeed be making its way over here in due course.
