Leapmotor B05 review – first drive

Make and model: Leapmotor B05
Description: Medium electric hatchback
Price: £30,495, plus optional extras

Summary: The Leapmotor B05 offers plenty of space, equipment and electric range for the money, but frustrating software and poor driver assistance systems hold it back.

For a broader ownership picture, see our Leapmotor B05 Expert Rating, which combines media reviews, safety data, reliability, running costs and warranty cover.

The Leapmotor B05 is a new electric family hatchback from one of the fastest-growing Chinese car brands now entering the UK market. It is the fourth Leapmotor model to arrive here, following the T03 city car and the larger B10 and C10 SUVs.

Unlike many new cars, the B05 keeps things simple. There is only one battery, one motor, one trim level and one price. Leapmotor says that most electric car buyers choose the larger battery when they are given the choice, so it has decided not to offer a smaller-battery version at all.

That means every B05 in the UK will get a 67kWh battery, a rear-mounted electric motor, rear-wheel drive and a claimed driving range of 300 miles. It is priced at £30.5K, although Leapmotor is currently offering a £1,500 discount that brings the launch price down to £29K.

Our first drive took place in Germany, so we will need to try the car again on UK roads before drawing a final conclusion. But even from this first drive, the main story is clear enough. The Leapmotor B05 gets very close to being a very good car, but is let down by software that is not yet good enough.

Price and equipment

The Leapmotor B05 has one of the simplest line-ups in the new car market. There is one trim level and nearly everything is standard, so buyers basically choose their exterior colour and interior trim.

Standard equipment is generous. The B05 comes with 19-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic glass roof, electrically adjustable and heated front seats, heated steering wheel, automatic air conditioning, synthetic leather upholstery, rear air vents, ambient lighting in a variety of colours, a 15-inch central touchscreen, a nine-inch driver display, wireless smartphone charging, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 12-speaker audio system, 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise control and a long list of driver assistance systems.

At £30.5K before the current launch discount, the B05 is several thousand pounds cheaper than similarly equipped electric hatchbacks from some of Leapmotor’s Stellantis sister brands, including the Vauxhall Astra Electric and Peugeot E-308. Leapmotor says it is targeting different customers, but many retailers will be selling these cars from the same wider dealer groups, so it is not hard to imagine buyers comparing them directly.

Value for money is one of the B05’s strongest arguments. The MG 4 is probably its closest price rival, and is nicer to drive, although its styling is not to all tastes. Cars like the Kia EV4, Renault Megane E-Tech and Volkswagen ID.3 are all substantially dearer in comparable form.

Inside the car

The Leapmotor B05 makes a strong first impression inside, largely thanks to its space and equipment. Front-seat comfort is good enough, rear-seat space is roomy for this class of car and the standard panoramic roof brightens up an interior that would otherwise feel quite grey and plain.

The basic material quality seems OK, but the cabin still looks a bit cheap in places. It is very minimalist, with almost no physical controls beyond the power window switches and a few fairly mysterious buttons on the steering wheel. We would definitely be tempted by one of the alternative interior colour combinations to change things up from boring derk grey everywhere, although lighter trims inevitably get dirty more quickly.

The main issue is the touchscreen. Leapmotor claims the interface is fully customisable and offers a smartphone-like experience, but the reality is not that impressive. In practice, the customisation seems largely limited to adjusting the icons along the bottom of the screen.

The layout is also odd. About two-thirds of the screen is dominated by a wallpaper image, which in our car was a picture of the car itself, while most of the useful buttons and icons are squeezed into the bottom third. It would be much better if the buttons and icons used the entire screen, like on an actual smartphone. There’s a reason why Apple CarPay and Android Auto – which are smartphone-based touchscreen interfaces – look the way they do. Leapmotor would do well to imitate that.

It’s an even bigger problem when almost everything runs through the touchscreen. Motoring journalists have spent the last few years complaining about car makers pushing too many major controls through screens, but it is clear that the trend is not reversing any time soon (partly because Chinese customers apparently like it, and partly because it’s much cheaper for car manufacturers). If a car company is going to force drivers to use a touchscreen for almost everything, the software needs to be excellent. In the B05, it is not.

The buttons are unnecessarily small, the menus are not always logically laid out, and there are not enough shortcuts to quickly disable the most irritating driver assistance systems. That means you’ll have to navigate through a mess of menus every single time you start the car, because you will almost certainly want to turn several of them off – more on that below.

There are some good ideas. The driver display is mounted to the steering column, so it moves with the steering wheel and remains visible when you adjust your driving position. That is better than a fixed screen that can end up partly hidden behind the steering wheel. Unfortunately, the display uses fonts that are too small to read easily on the move. This is a common problem, especially on some newer Chinese cars, but it still needs fixing.

Practicality is reasonable. The rear seats are spacious and the boot measures 345 litres, expanding to 1,400 litres with the rear seats folded. That seats-up figure is average rather than generous, with some rivals offering more than 400 litres.

Driving range and charging

The Leapmotor B05 uses a 67kWh battery, giving an official test range of up to 300 miles. That is a good figure for the price, especially when several more expensive electric hatchbacks offer less.

Public charging is also strong on paper. The B05 can charge at up to 174kW, with Leapmotor quoting a 30-80% public charging time of 17 minutes. An 11kW AC onboard charger is also standard for home or workplace charging where suitable charging equipment is available.

Electrical efficiency looks reasonable, if not class-leading, but we didn’t get to properly measure its real-world figures on the test drive route. Like most electric cars, the B05 should be much cheaper to run than a petrol hatchback if you can charge regularly at home or work. Public charging costs vary much more widely, so the running-cost advantage will depend heavily on how and where the car is charged.

On the road

The Leapmotor B05 is smooth, refined and quiet, as most electric cars are. It has a single electric motor driving the rear wheels, producing 160kW (218hp), and Leapmotor quotes a 0-62mph time of a little under seven seconds.

There is also a launch mode, although we did not try it. It feels a bit pointless in a family hatchback, and most buyers are unlikely to use it more than once or twice.

In normal driving, the B05 is pleasantly easy-going. The handling is neutral and predictable, and the car feels set up more for a smooth, comfortable ride than for sporty responses. Leapmotor talks about 50:50 weight distribution for optimised handling, but this is not really a car for hustling quickly.

The steering is very light by default. You can adjust it through the touchscreen menus, and our preference was the Sport setting, which adds a bit more weight. That setting can be saved in a personalised driver profile, which is useful. The B05 supports up to eight different driver profiles, covering various settings, including some driver-assistance preferences.

The biggest dynamic problem is not ride, performance or handling. It is the driver assistance systems. They are awful.

The lane-keeping and driver distraction warnings are the worst offenders, but the problem is broader than that. Leapmotor appears to have one of the poorest implementations of these systems of any manufacturer currently operating in the UK. This is now the fourth Leapmotor model launched here, and it is still not good enough.

Leapmotor spokespeople said the company responded to criticism of the T03 and C10 last year by delivering over-the-air updates within a month. That is encouraging in theory, but the B05 shows that the problem has not been properly fixed. These systems are too intrusive, too annoying and too difficult to quickly disable.

Ownership

The B05 does not yet have a Euro NCAP safety rating, so we can’t advise how safe it is in an emergency situation.

Leapmotor’s new car warranty is four years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. The battery warranty is eight years or 100,000 miles. That is better than the bare minimum offered by some established brands, although still not as generous as several newer car companies operating in the UK.

Running-cost information is still incomplete. The official 300-mile driving range is useful, and the B05 should be relatively affordable to run if you can charge regularly at home or at work. But insurance, servicing and other whole-life cost data are still being gathered.

Once all of this information is available, we’ll update our Expert Rating page for the B05.

Verdict

The Leapmotor B05 comes very close to being a very good family car. It’s spacious, well-equipped, comfortable enough and very competitively priced. The official 300-mile driving range is useful, public charging performance looks strong and the car is smooth and easy to drive most of the time.

But two things hold it back quite badly. The touchscreen system is frustrating, and the driver assistance systems are far too intrusive. These are not small issues, because both affect the car every time you drive it.

The good news is that they should both be fixable through software updates. The less good news is that Leapmotor has already had several chances to learn from the same criticisms on earlier models, and the B05 still arrives with similar problems.

As it stands, the Leapmotor B05 is an excellent-value electric hatchback with plenty going for it, but it is not yet the finished article. If Leapmotor can sort the software quickly, this could become a much easier car to recommend.

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Key specifications