I’m running about this month in a Leapmotor T03, the most diminutive offering in the Leapmotor range.
It’s an EV with a usable battery size of 36kW/h and a combined WLTP range of 165 miles. In an urban Edinburgh environment it’s doing about 170 miles on a charge.
Inside, it’s never heard of the term ‘soft touch’ - everything is hard plastics.
There’s a good sized fixed glass sunroof with an electric retractable blind, it’ll carry four people at a push and the boot will comfortably take a week’s shopping.
It’s the epitome of low cost personal mobility that’ll cost peanuts to run. If it needs a tyre of two, they’re 165/65-15.
There’s no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, but it has Bluetooth and a built-in navigation.
Yours, currently, with a £3000 discount, for £12,995.
I’m getting a little bit attached to it…
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Guess it's a little like the Dacia Spring? Ideal for those just needing a basic shopping trolley type car, makes a awfully lot of sense in some ways, neighbour has a 14 year old Sandero, had it from new, never given a bit of trouble, as crude and basic as you like but suits his needs perfectly.
Nice to see a review of something lower down the market MCB, thanks for posting.
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Bit more occupant friendly than the Spring (greater interior width, better rear legroom), but a smaller boot than the Spring.
Greater range, and a little less basic than the Dacia.
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It's good to see a lot of small evs now available. A category up in price and slightly larger is the Hyundai Inster which would fulfil a lot of people's needs including mineI guess.
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Just had a look online, realised I didn't actually know what one looked like! Got a touch of the E500 about it, quite cute.
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>>.... I didn't actually know what one looked like! Got a touch of the E500 about it, quite cute.>>
E500? ! Interestingly, it apparently weighs only around 50kg more than our small ICE runabout, a Mk1 Peugeot 2008.
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Unlike the 500, there’s room for a bipedal driver. They’re notorious for having a cramped driver’s footwell.
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BBC News this week covered EV insurance costs being higher than ICE. Thatcham crashed a Spring at low speed. The sort of thing that could easily happen in traffic. Visibly not much damage except the charge point is in the grille and it broke. According to the man from Thatcham the replacement comes with some wiring and other bits - £4k without labour. Car was likely a write off. Why do some manufacturers place them in possibly the most vulnerable place?
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Why do some manufacturers place them
>> in possibly the most vulnerable place?
Because unlike a fuel tank/filling neck there are no regulations about where they go or how resilient they need to be. So because most recharge points are nose or tail in, thats where they go, unlike filling stations which are side on.
As far as insurance goes, most cars are now so heavily equiped with safety sensors (some even toying with lidar), minor front end damage becomes expensive.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 11 Jul 26 at 18:03
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>> Why do some manufacturers place them
>> >> in possibly the most vulnerable place?
>>
>> Because unlike a fuel tank/filling neck there are no regulations about where they go or
>> how resilient they need to be.
Back in the seventies I had a Simca 1000 The fuel tank was located in the rear of the car, directly behind the rear passenger seats and in front of the engine bay
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>>
>> Back in the seventies I had a Simca 1000 The fuel tank was located in
>> the rear of the car, directly behind the rear passenger seats and in front of
>> the engine bay
>>
My father bought a Simca 1100, an early 5 door hatch from memory, back in the early 70s i think from Rostron & Johnson, Eccleshill, Bradford.
It broke down on the short drive home.
I remember looking at Simca estate cars with a 2 piece back door…tyre kicking before saturday afternoon football, way outside his budget after a succession of Hillman Hunter estates.
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>>Back in the seventies I had a Simca 1000
Did a fair few of those back in the day.
www.simcatalbotclub.org/simca-1000
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I’m not a fan of having the charge port in the nose, simply because if I’m charging in public all I get to look at is the charger. If I’ve reversed in, I can see what’s going on and don’t have to reverse out of a bay.
Even a Renault 4 or 5, with the port in the front wing there’s usually enough cable to reverse in.
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Not life threatening, but an 8mph front or rear collision can cause some expensive damage. Not just charging ports, but parking sensors, cameras, led lighting etc.
Much could be designed out - charge ports set back from front or rear, replaceable components rather than complete units, mountings which fail to allow expensive components to survive.
We can't expect manufacturers to do much - they make little money on new cars so exploit the market for distress purchases. Insurance companies just increase the premiums to cover the repair costs.
Perhaps NCAP could be extended to make mandatory minor repair assessments available. Or a decent consumer body (eg Which) start to analyse and publically report. Perhaps I'm probably somewhat naive!!
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My ID3 has charging point on rear offside which might be better protected in a collision but has downside that it s not possible to use most Tesla chargesr because of the shortness of their cables.
You can straddle a couple of bays but that tends to make the Tesla drivers annoyed. The latest version 4 chargers have been equipped with longer cables but not many of those around yet.
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That’s my Leapmotor T03 (actually 6 identical ones) gone off on a transporter after four weeks.
And they’ve been OK - about the least dynamic thing you’ll ever drive, it’s soft in ride, roll and pitch, and with low geared steering, but at least it rides pretty well.
Efficiency has hovered around 5 miles per kW/h, it’ll keep up with traffic around town, and there’s a button on the steering wheel which, when pressed twice, puts the car into ‘Quiet Mode’ in that it silences most of the proliferation of bings, bongs & beeps.
It’d be the world’s worst getaway car - from pressing the Start button to being able to select Drive can take 5-7 seconds whilst it wakes up.
Bit of a shortage of physical buttons, and in this recent weather the necessity to switch on the AC every time the car is started, became irritants.
One front wiper and no rear one, I’d suspect that the range at higher speeds would be compromised. Add to that 55 minutes to charge from 10-80%, it’s an inner city car rather than in inter-city one.
But as ‘My First EV’ it’s great value as 3.6 metres of getting from A-B.
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Been looking at delivery mileage Dacia Springs on Car360. A 75 plate 65 base (Expression I think) is £8895 with 365 miles on it, which is unbelievable value in my opinion. We already have a VW ID3 on main family car duties, so this will be a second car and commuter. There’s loads of them on 74-75 plates at silly prices.
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Spring does seem a bit of a bargain.
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Alright for purely local trips but do take one for a test drive. Pretty awful by all accounts.
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>> Alright for purely local trips but do take one for a test drive. Pretty awful
>> by all accounts.
If I suddenly needed a second car again for stuff within a close radius to home, like a commute, a Spring would be worth a look.
It's pretty basic inside and range isn't great either.
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Although not really comparable in price to the Leapmotor I have been driving around for the last week in a BYD Dolphin Surf loan car while my ID3 is being repaired. Very capable and practical
small car which is great around town and country lanes but is also at home on dual carriageways (don’t have motorways here :-)
If I were in the market for a smallerEV I would either go for the Surf or the Renault 5E
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I think the small BYD is a very decent little car, but despite there being a large local dealer there’s hardly any on the road here. A quick drive past explains why… They’re priced in excess of £20k! I’d rather buy something used, or find the extra for the brilliant Renault 5 instead. As a used buy, at circa £10k in a year or so, they’ll make for sensible second car or commuter. I’ve certainly got my eye on prices, and with old Freddy Focus just passing his (almost certainly last) Mot, I have time.
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As another option, Renault Twingo is due in the UK very early next year. Dealers have LHD showroom car at the moment, but no test drives. I saw one a couple of days ago, and it’s continuing Renault’s recent brilliant form in relaunching previous models that look fabulous.
I should get a brief drive in one in November, impressions to follow.
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and it’s continuing Renault’s recent brilliant form in relaunching previous models
>> that look fabulous.
I guess that means we wont get a E-Megane then.
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>> There already is one
Not the original "shaking its ass" one.
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“As another option, Renault Twingo is due in the UK very early next year. Dealers
have LHD showroom car at the moment, but no test drives. I saw one a
couple of days ago, and it’s continuing Renault’s recent brilliant form in relaunching previous models
that look fabulous.
I should get a brief drive in one in November, impressions to follow.”
Renault really are on form at the moment. The new Twingo looks great, ditto the new soft top R4 too. But the popularity is going to hurt the prospects of picking up a sub £10k bargain anytime soon. The Zoe is buttons used, but looks like a lump of melted plastic. Not that I’m talking it down, we get great usage from them as pool cars at work.
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Leapmotor T03 - Paul 1963
