Leapmotor offers cut-price smart cars

New energy vehicle startup Leapmotor started presales of its B10 last week, aiming to seize the mass market with low-cost intelligent driving features in the competitive Chinese auto market.

The electric SUV has five variants with presale prices from 109,800 yuan ($15,165) to 139,800 yuan, the largest and most fiercely competitive price range.

The variant priced at 129,800 yuan comes with lidar and advanced intelligent driving features, which were typically found in models priced above 200,000 yuan.

With the Qualcomm 8650 smart driving chip and ATX long-range lidar from Hesai Technology, the model can achieve 26 advanced functions, including navigation assist and parking assist.

The model is set to be launched in April, with its price expected to be lower than during presales.

Cheaper cars featuring advanced intelligent driving systems has become a trend in the industry, with automakers including BYD and GAC Toyota introducing such models in the past two months.

Leapmotor Chairman and CEO Zhu Jiangming said that the company began preparations to make intelligent driving a standard configuration a year ago. The company's intelligent driving team had over 500 members in the algorithm sector by the end of 2024. It plans to invest more than 800 million yuan in intelligent driving in 2025.

He added that the system will be featured across Leapmotor's A, B, C and D series, with free continuous upgrades for life. Its aim this year is to become a top-tier intelligent driving service provider.

According to Leapmotor, there were more than 15,000 orders within an hour of the B10's presales, with 70 percent opting for the variant with lidar.

As the first model of Leapmotor's B series, the B10 features the latest self-developed central control architecture LEAP 3.5, which achieves a high-level of integration in software and hardware, crucially aiding Leapmotor in cost saving.

The B10 is expected to become a new sales pillar for Leapmotor with a target to exceed the C series of 40,000 units monthly, Zhu said.

The automaker plans to launch the B01 sedan in May and the B05 hatchback in October. With these models, Leapmotor is targeting sales of 500,000 to 600,000 units in 2025.

Last week, Leapmotor released its 2024 financial report showing that it achieved a revenue of 32.16 billion yuan, up 92 percent year-on-year. Its gross profit margin reached 8.4 percent, up 7.9 percentage points over 2023. Deliveries reached 300,000 units in the year, exceeding its target.

In particular, the company went profitable in the fourth quarter, one year ahead of schedule, and became the second profitable NEV startup in China after Li Auto.

Zhu said that self-developed and self-manufactured core components are the key to cost control, which now account for 65 percent of a vehicle's total cost. Through product and component integration, the sharing rate of components within the same series has reached 85 percent.

Collaborations with automakers like FAW result in cost reductions for both parties, leading to higher sales volumes and lower development expenses, Zhu added.

Leapmotor's in-house development efforts secured 10 external component projects in 2024, with supplies expected to start by the end of 2025 or early 2026, the company said.

The overseas market is also anticipated to support Leapmotor's growth. Having sold C10 SUVs and T03 city cars abroad, overseas sales are expected to rise from 13,000 units in 2024 to 50,000 units this year.

Cao Li, senior vice-president of Leapmotor, said the B10 will come in a version designed for export in mid-2025. The company also plans to decide the location for a production site in Europe this year, aiming to achieve local manufacturing by the first half of 2026 to avoid high tariffs.

Leapmotor International, the joint venture between Leapmotor and Stellantis Group to sell Leapmotor vehicles overseas, has set up 400 global sales outlets, with more than 350 in Europe. It will increase to 550 outlets this year.