Intrusive safety systems

Which gets us to those safety systems.

It has a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating but to say they’re annoying and intrusive is an understatement. While I know EU legislation prescribes it, perhaps there’s a less intrusive way to go about it, before you drive into a lake as a result of the frustration.

As it is, there’s already a shortcut on the screen to the menu providing you with the option of turning the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) off. Leapmotor say they have already implemented OTA software updates to improve it with more scheduled for the future.

On day one we managed to switch everything off but because it defaults to the original setting, you need to set everything again every time the car has been switched off.

Which we duly did on day two including Emergency Lane Keeping but try as we might it would continue to beep constantly even if we were still a fair way away from the lines.

I reckon the system needs further calibration before launching locally.

Interestingly they spent months on R&D setting up the car for European conditions with Stellantis engineers focussing on suspension and chassis set-up to make it align more for a faster average speed.

Economy

When we stopped in Barcelona we had driven 460km with about 300km left in the 50-litre fuel tank and 80km remaining in the battery. The drive also included long stretches of highway driving at 120km/h to get to the airport so we weren’t that far off the claimed range.

Pricing?

I think the success of the Leapmotor C10 REEV will depend largely on pricing.

In Europe it starts at €36,000 which without taxes and import duties equates to about R762 000.

With its impressive range and features if they can bring it in under R800 000 South Africans are likely to warm to it as opposed to a full BEV because let’s face it, despite what the converted say, we haven’t exactly embraced electric cars with much enthusiasm.