Stellantis and Leapmotor previously formed a joint venture, Leapmotor International, headquartered in Amsterdam. Stellantis holds a 51 per cent stake and Leapmotor the remaining 49 per cent. This JV is designed to manage the operations of Chinese startup brand Leapmotor in Europe, India and Asia Pacific (excluding China), the Middle East, Africa and South America.
Leaptmotor International plans to introduce at least one new model every year. So far, the Leapmotor T03 and Leapmotor C10 have been confirmed for release and are already on sale in China.
The T03 is an electric city car with a claimed range of 265 kilometres on the WLTP cycle, which will compete with the Dacia Spring. In China, the T03 costs around €6,500 for the most basic version. In Europe, the starting price is expected to be less than 20 thousand euros.
Leapmotor C10 is a mid-size crossover available in China in both purely electric version and electric version with range extender, i.e. an internal combustion engine that acts as a generator. However, only the fully electric C10 with a claimed range of 420 kilometres is confirmed for Europe. This car will be supplied from China.
The second Leapmotor model, which will be produced at the Stellantis plant in Poland, will be a compact crossover Leapmotor A12. According to Reuters, localised production of components is also being prepared.
Leaptmotor International chose the Polish plant Stellantis for localisation of production of inexpensive Chinese electric cars, mainly because of low production costs. Thus, the cost of production of one car at the Polish plant is about 400-500 euros, while in Italy it is about 1,000 euros.
From September, Leapmotor International will be present in nine European countries: France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Greece and Romania. It will have a network of 200 outlets in the region by the end of the year.
Source: Reuters
