Emerging Chinese car company Leapmotor officially announced its entry into Australia last year with its first electric vehicle, the C10 electric SUV. This was followed in September this year with the company’s second fully electric offering, the B10 SUV, being launched in our market with an incredible starting driveaway price of just $38,990.
Now, a new globally bound electric hatchback model, the B05, has gone on pre-sales in China with pricing starting from the equivalent of just $A22,900.
This model will be slightly longer than the currently available MG4 and BYD Dolphin, coming in closer to the length of small SUVs such as BYD Atto 3.
The entry-level variant is powered by a 132 KW rear-mounted motor with 0-100 km/h acceleration time of around 8.7 seconds.
Moving up in the range and similar to the locally available B10 and C10 EV models, the other B05 variants are powered by a 160 kW motor, which helps reduce its 0-100 km/h time down to 6.5 seconds.
On the battery front, the B05 has two options with the base model coming equipped with a 56.2 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which is rated at 515 km of NEDC range. This is likely to be closer to 430 km on the WLTP cycle that is commonly used in Australia.
All other variants carry the bigger 67.1 kWh LFP battery pack with NEDC range of 605 km which we expect to be aroun 500 km on the WLTP cycle.
11 kW AC charging will be expected on both batteries in the international market, along with DC charging speeds of up to 168 kW on the larger battery-equipped variants, as seen in the B10 available locally.
According the specs in China, DC charging should help get the car from 30-80% in around 18 minutes.
Moving inside, a large 14.6-inch infotainment screen is paired with an 8.8-inch driver instrument cluster behind the steering wheel.
The B05 will be available in six colours, including our favourite, the “Electric Yellow”, which is not found on many cars available today.
The Leapmotor B05 was first unveiled during September’s IAA Mobility Show in Germany. Not much was known about the specs of the car so the pre-sale in China reveals the key specs expected in the international markets.
Official launch of this model in China is aimed at the end of November, before global release dates are announced for 2026.
If this model arrives in Australia, it would likely challenge the MG4, BYD Dolphin, and the upcoming GAC Aion UT. Given the pricing we have seen so far from Leapmotor, it can be expected to be priced around the mid-30 thousand mark.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.