Leapmotor B10 is 10th in September's electric-car table

SMMT's September battery-electric table puts the Leapmotor B10 10th, with 1,883 registrations. Leapmotor's own release uses that count and calls the car a top-five EV, and second among retail battery-electric buyers. The public table is not ordered that way: fifth is the Kia EV3, at 3,026, and the overall new-car tenth is the Audi A3, at 5,268. It would be easy to read 1,883 as a verdict on the car. It is a place on the electric list, in a plate-change month, with a price doing much of the work.

The month was large. SMMT recorded 350,536 new cars, up 12.0% on a year earlier. Battery-electric registrations were 99,201, a 28.3% share, against 72,779 and 23.3% the September before. The first nine months stand at a 26.2% electric share, short of the 33% mandated for 2026. Mike Hawes, the SMMT chief executive, said uptake "remains behind mandated targets".

Leapmotor says the brand registered 3,943 vehicles in September and 13,283 in nine months, with 94% of that year-to-date volume battery-electric, and that its UK retail network now exceeds 90 locations. Carwow describes the European seller as 51% owned by Stellantis, handling the cars sold outside China. That is a service network, not a residual-value record.

Nor is the month a clean reading of demand. Leapmotor's October 2025 price list put the B10 at £29,995 on the road after a £1,500 LEAP-GRANT. The current UK offers page lists £32,495 before the grant and £30,995 after it, with 0% APR on a PCP for retail orders from 1 October to 31 December 2026. Offers of that kind pull registrations forward. This one has already aged: the grant-adjusted price is £1,000 higher than at launch.

The car in that price list is a 67.1 kWh pack, a claimed 270-mile WLTP range and a quoted 30-to-80% DC charge in 20 minutes, with heated and ventilated front seats, a panoramic roof, a 14.6-inch screen and a 360-degree camera system as standard. The equipment is the showroom argument.

Carwow's review says its writers saw 254 miles against the 270-mile claim, and that a more representative UK test was still to come. The same page's specification panel and FAQ list an official range of up to 261 miles. The review text also puts the boot at 430 litres, under the Kia EV3's 460 and the MG S5 EV's 453, and calls the rear seats roomy enough for three tall adults. Arnold Clark's presenter, on a UK drive, describes a 430-litre boot as well. Carwow's specification panel lists a different boot range, so 430 litres stays a reviewers' description rather than a clean data field.

On the screen they agree. Carwow calls the built-in system frustrating. Arnold Clark's presenter praised the forward view, the seats and the near-absence of road noise, noted wind noise at the mirror, and said the heating, roof and driver aids living in the display would take getting used to.

Carwow finds the B10 easy in town and overly soft once the surface breaks up. At motorway pace it is quiet and mostly comfortable, though sharper joints still unsettle it. On a country road it leans, and the steering gives almost no feedback. An EV3 or a Skoda Elroq, the dearer cars named beside it, are the real comparison: the monthly saving has to be set against that drive.

The 20-minute stop is the manufacturer's quote, repeated on Carwow's data panel with a 168 kW peak. Neither publishes a curve, a cold-weather rate or a busy-charger result. Arnold Clark repeats the 20 minutes without timing a stop.

A grant and a Stellantis-backed network were enough to put a new Chinese electric brand on Britain's electric top ten. Leapmotor's top-five wording does not match the SMMT order, and £29,995 is no longer the offers-page price. What the table cannot settle is which range figure survives a UK run, whether the screen is tolerable every day, and whether that soft suspension fits the roads a buyer actually uses, at £30,995 after the grant.