Earlier today, Stellantis Malaysia announced that local assembly had begun for the Leapmotor B10 alongside the C10 EV at Stellantis’ Gurun, Kedah plant. The announcement also saw the mention that the B10 range had been resized.
When it was launched here in December last year, arriving in fully-imported CBU form, two variants were available for the B10, these being a base Life, officially priced at RM107,800, and a higher-spec Design, which was priced at RM118,800.
The move to CKD has seen the Life being dropped, with the B10 Design the only version available to Malaysian buyers from this point. Pricing of the local assembly version remains the same, at RM118,800 on-the-road, without insurance.
Specifications and trim for the variant haven’t changed, with only a revision in the exterior – and interior – colour palette the only difference. The rear-wheel drive B10 Design continues with the same single electric motor powertrain, which offers 218 PS (215 hp, or 160 kW) and 240 Nm in the way of output. Performance figures include a 0-100 km/h time of 8.0 seconds and a 170 km/h top speed.
Juiced by a CATL-sourced lithium iron phospate (LFP) battery with a 67.1 kWh capacity, the Design is capable of up to 434 km of travel on a single charge. In terms of charging times, it takes 5.6 hours to get the pack fully charged on AC at 11 kW, while DC charging at 168 kW max will take about 20 minutes to bring the unit from a 30 to 80% state-of-charge.
As standard, the B10 comes equipped with a fixed panoramic sunroof (with a powered sunshade), auto air-conditioning (with rear AC vents), an 8.8-inch instrument display panel and a 2.5K high-resolution 14.6-inch centre touchscreen running the latest Leap OS 4.0 Plus, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155 chipset and equipped with up to 16GB of memory and an integrated Adreno 640 GPU.
In March, the company announced an over-the-air (OTA) software upgrade that introduced native Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support as well as expanded voice command functions and a one-pedal driving mode.
Elsewhere, the kit list also includes a dual mobile phone holder with a 15 watt wireless charging pad (on the right side) and electrically-adjustable, heated and ventilated front seats (six-way driver and four-way front passenger). As before, the upholstery on the Design is a liquid-resistant Oeko-Tex Standard 100 ‘silicone leather’ (as seen on the C10), but the two colour options from launch, dark grey or a lighter shadow grey, has been trimmed to only dark grey for the CKD version.
Other standard fit items for the B10 include automatic folding side mirrors, rain sensing wipers, 64-way ambient lighting, rear privacy windows, an electric tailgate, a 12-speaker sound system and four USB ports (one 12 watt Type-A, one 60 watt Type-C at the front, and one 12 watt Type-A and one 15 watt Type-C for the rear).
The move to CKD also introduces a third option to access and operate the start function for the car. Joining the original key card system and mobile phone app is an optional physical remote key fob. Available for both new and existing owners, the key fob allows one to enter the car in a normal keyless manner, without having to first tap the wing mirror with the key card or use your phone.
However, the start procedure still requires either the key card to be placed on the centre console, or a PIN. More importantly, it will cost those who want one RM500 for a unit, the price including configuration.
Finally, besides the downsizing of the interior colour options to one, as mentioned earlier, the exterior choices have also been trimmed. When it was launched, five exterior colours were offered for the B10, these being Starry Night Blue, Dawn Purple, Pearly White, Tundra Grey, and Metallic Black. Local assembly has scaled it down to four, with Dawn Purple dropped from the choice list.
