Leapmotor T03 review

Our opinion on the Leapmotor T03

Leapmotor will trade on maximum value for money with its cars, with the brand setting its sights firmly on Dacia and its sizeable market share. The Leapmotor T03 is a credible alternative to the Dacia Spring EV, and should win fans on its lavish amount of standard equipment alone. 

Sure, there are a few quirks to the driving experience, and it does look a little ungainly from some angles, but as a first step into EV ownership, or as a second car in the household for those who want an electric runaround to supplement a conventionally powered car for longer weekend drives, there’s really very little not to like about the T03.

About the Leapmotor T03

‘The importance, worth or usefulness of something’ is how the Oxford Dictionary defines ‘value’. So while the Leapmotor T03 may not be the cheapest electric car on the market (albeit second only to the Dacia Spring) UK brand director Damien Dally insists it is “the best value” vehicle currently on sale.

At first glance, that’s hard to argue. There is only one specification, but the equipment list is long – much lengthier than the Dacia’s, certainly. For just shy of £16,000 (or £199 per month with £199 down) you get big-car kit such as alloy wheels, a panoramic roof, all-round electric windows, a rear-view camera and keyless go. Inside, there’s a 10-inch touchscreen and eight-inch digital instrument cluster, air-conditioning, so-called ‘Sporty Style’ seats and a multi-function steering wheel. It even boasts a total of 10 advanced driver-assistance systems. 

That’s before you peel back the slightly gawky-looking body and peer under the skin. Beneath the swathes of cheap-feeling plastic, you’ll find a reasonably chunky 37kWh battery, which Leapmotor says is good for 165 miles of range. That’s not the stuff of fantasy, either – even on our fast-paced, largely rural test route on a cool winter’s day, mileage dropped largely in line with the distance driven. 

Along with the single battery offering, there’s also just one electric motor to go with it. It’s a front-mounted motor with 95bhp and 158Nm of torque – more than you get in the Dacia Spring. The Leapmotor is quicker to 62mph, taking 12 seconds compared with the 13.7 seconds the Spring needs.

Leapmotor might be a new name in Europe, but it has the backing of Stellantis, which owns a majority of the firm. Stellantis hopes to have 500 “points of sales” for Leapmotor across Europe by 2026. The T03 will also be produced at Stellantis’ Tychy plant in Poland, where the Jeep Avenger, Fiat 600 and Alfa Romeo Junior are made.

This might seem like a back-handed compliment, but the most important thing you can say about the way the Leapmotor T03 drives is that it feels like a normal car. From the outside, you might have a preconceived notion that it will flop around on its comically thin tyres and have all the balance of a mid-game Jenga tower, but overall, it is decent enough to drive. 

Electric motors, 0-60mph acceleration and top speed

A 94bhp electric motor sends power to the front wheels via a single-speed automatic, and with a 0-62mph time of 12.7 seconds, the T03 is quicker than a Dacia Spring (which takes 13.7 seconds). However, the T03 isn’t as responsive as you’d expect of a small electric car. There’s a slight delay in the throttle mapping, which means you often have to floor it if you want to make an eager pull away from a junction. However, once underway, we found it to be much more responsive.

Town driving, visibility and parking

The T03 has a tall stance and a reasonably high driving position, with the upshot being excellent all-round visibility. The ride can be a little bouncy due to the short wheelbase, but it’s not particularly crashy and should suit most urban uses. There are different modes for the steering, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart; there’s an unashamed focus on ease of use here, rather than any level of precision or driver feedback

As with most EVs, the T03 has a regenerative braking system, and it is almost strong enough in terms of deceleration once you lift off the accelerator to enable one-pedal driving.

B-road driving and handling

Some of the T03’s less positive B-road driving characteristics are a result of its dinky proportions. For example, the tiny wheels can mean you’re correcting the steering a little more often on roads with camber, and it’s more susceptible to tramlining, too. The overactive lane-keep safety-assist systems don’t help in this regard, either.

Refinement is reasonable up to the national speed limit, where that upright stance and tall glasshouse drum up a bit of wind noise.  

Motorway driving and long-distance comfort

On the motorway, the electric motor’s power does tail off, although not to the extent that it makes overtakes particularly anxiety-inducing. There’s enough power here for the T03 to hold its own. It’s pretty refined at speed – there’s not much road noise because there’s simply not a lot of tyre in contact with the tarmac to generate excessive sound. There is a bit of wind noise at higher speeds, as we mentioned earlier, but that’s true of a number of city cars.

Electric range, battery life and charge time

There’s only one version of the Leapmotor T03 and it comes with a 37.3kWh battery for a range of 165 miles. A Dacia Spring will return 140 miles from its smaller 26.8kWh battery. 

The T03 weighs 1,203kg – a chunky 229kg more than the Spring thanks mainly to the T03's generous levels of standard equipment. While that weight penalty is likely to mean the T03 won’t be as efficient as the Spring, the T03 does have a higher-capacity battery to give it more range overall, and it still has some other neat tricks to boost driving range, such as the thin 165-section tyres that don’t create much rolling resistance, a brake regeneration system to help top up the battery when slowing down, and a low drag coefficient of 0.26 to help it cut more easily through the air.

While the T03 initially comes in one trim level, there’s potential for Leapmotor to launch a more basic version with less kit and likely a lighter kerbweight, which would increase the range even further.

DC fast charging is standard, though, with Leapmotor claiming a peak rate of 45kW – 15kW more than the Dacia. T03 owners are unlikely to be rapid-charging on a regular basis, but should you need to, the handy front-mounted charge port will allow for a 30 to 80 per cent top-up in just over half an hour. The T03 also comes with an on-board 6.6kW AC charger that can offer the same top-up in 3.5 hours. 

A Stellantis product, the T03 gets a slightly better level of warranty coverage than the rest of the group’s EVs. There’s a four-year, 60,000-mile warranty, plus eight years and 100,000 miles of cover on the battery.

Insurance groups

As is often the case with electric vehicles versus a traditionally powered alternative, the insurance rating for the T03 is rather high for a city car, in group 25. That’s on par with the Dacia Spring, but nine groups higher than the entry-level Fiat 500e. 

For comparison, an entry-level Skoda Fabia starts in group four, and rises to group 20 for the quickest 148bhp 1.5 TSI Monte Carlo Edition trim.

Tax

EVs tend to make good sense as a company car because zero-emission cars are in lower Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax bands compared with a regular petrol or diesel vehicle. For the moment, the T03 is in the two per cent bracket, rising to three per cent from April 2025. 

You will have to pay the standard VED tax rate from 1 April 2025 onwards, but since no T03 costs more than £40,000 when new, you won’t need to pay the luxury car supplementary tax. 

Depreciation

Electric vehicles haven’t had a great time with regard to depreciation versus regular petrol or diesel cars because they tend to be more expensive in the first place. However, the more affordable pricing of the T03 means it should retain around 44 per cent of its original value after three years or 36,000 miles, which essentially matches the Dacia Spring. That is a lot better than the Fiat 500e, which, according to our expert data, is only likely to be worth between 31-38 per cent of its original value over the same period, and that rival is almost twice the price of the T03 in its most costly trim levels.

The exterior of the Leapmotor T03 is a pretty simple design. There are rounded features to give it a friendly look and Leapmotor says the fake grille was shaped to look like a smile. The proportions are tiny, especially when you see the side profile and the wheels sitting at each corner. 

The ‘cell-to-chassis�� platform is bespoke to the T03 and allows it to have traditional ‘city car’ dimensions, although Leapmotor claims interior space is on a par with what you would normally see in a supermini. With no internal combustion-engined version, there’s greater scope to efficiently pack the electric powertrain within the T03’s body.

Interior and dashboard design

Step inside the T03, and you’re met with a pretty basic-looking cabin. There’s just a cup-holder and a slot for a smartphone as a centre console, while between the front occupants there’s another small storage spot, a button for the parking brake, and a cup-holder for the rear passengers. The doors offer up a reasonably sized bin for water bottles. 

Materials and build quality

We found the interior quality to be pretty decent in most places. Sure, there’s hard, scratchy plastic on the dash and doors, but it all feels well put together. The usual touch points are covered in higher-quality materials – for example, the leather-clad steering wheel and chromed door handles.

Infotainment, sat-nav and stereo

The largely crisp central screen does plenty of heavy lifting; the interior is almost completely devoid of buttons – everything from the radio and navigation, to the climate control and ADAS functions, is operated through the main display. 

The menus aren’t the least intuitive we’ve used, but you’ll need to play around for a bit to familiarise yourself with the layout. It’s capable of over-the-air updates, which can only be a good thing given our sat-nav froze mid-route. Some systems, such as the ability to switch off the over-sensitive lane-keep assist, are locked whilst driving, which seems unnecessary.

What also seems unnecessary is the incessant series of bings and bongs from the various safety systems. This is a Chinese-car blueprint, and is as bad here as in any new model we’ve tested; what should be a help feels more like a hindrance, especially in conjunction with constant nudges to the steering as you inevitably brush the white line on a country road. If there’s one thing Leapmotor could learn from its European alliance with the giant Stellantis Group, it’s how to temper these systems to western tastes – and our tighter, more winding roads.

In a few areas, the Leapmotor T03 has got the Dacia Spring pretty well beaten. It’s more generous in terms of interior passenger space, but the additional length of the Spring contributes to its more useful boot.

As with the Spring and other traditional city car rivals, such as the Kia Picanto, the T03 is a five-door car. That makes it more versatile than the Fiat 500e, which only comes as a three-door vehicle. You only get four seats with the T03, just like the 500e and Spring, so those who need a more practical car will have to revert back to petrol and get the five-seat Picanto or Hyundai i10. 

Dimensions and size

The Leapmotor T03 is firmly in the city car category in terms of size. For context, it’s slightly taller, wider, and longer than the Kia Picanto, but less lengthy compared with the Dacia Spring. Surprisingly the T03 is smaller than a Fiat 500e despite having more doors than its Italian rival.

Driving position, seats & space in the front

A pair of adults in the front will be fine for shorter journeys, but you’ll have to be comfortable making close acquaintance with your passenger because there isn’t a huge amount of shoulder room available. This is highlighted by the fact there’s no space made available for a central armrest.

There’s seat height adjustment to help you find a comfortable driving position, but the steering wheel (like a few smaller, less expensive cars) doesn’t come with a full range of adjustment.

Seats & space in the back

The back offers more headroom than you might expect, and just enough knee room for taller adults. Despite only being a four-seater, there’s no fold-down central armrest. Still, the far pricier Fiat 500e is also a four-seater, and the T03 has the advantage of having rear doors to aid access to the back seats, whereas the 500e only comes as a three-door car, where you have to clamber through a narrow gap in order to get in the back.

Boot space

The boot measures 210 litres, which is considerably down on the Dacia (308 litres), but the rear bench folds (in one piece) to free up a bit of added cargo capacity. It’s big enough for a weekly shopping trip or a weekend away for two adults, but the shape is annoying. It seemingly needlessly curves around the rear lights, reducing access, and there’s a rather large loading lip, too. There isn’t any underfloor storage for the charging cable.

The Leapmotor T03 hasn’t been assessed by Euro NCAP yet, although the maker says it will provide great protection to occupants in a crash thanks to its body-cage structure. This uses a one-piece, all-aluminium anti-collision beam and ‘high-strength’ steel, and comprises 60 per cent of the T03’s body. 

Levels of standard safety kit are impressive. There are three cameras and five radar sensors, which help implement the T03’s 10 driver-assistance functions, many of which you would expect to be fitted as standard in a family hatchback rather than a budget city car. These include lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, automatic speed assist with traffic sign recognition, driver tiredness detection, blind spot detection and an automatic emergency brake. However, as we mentioned in the Performance and Driving experience section, these systems can be a touch too hyperactive in regular driving.

But the burning question for interested customers will be around the dealer network and aftersales support. The good news is that thanks to its tie-up with Stellantis, Leapmotor already has 44 UK retailers up and running, with that number set to almost double by the end of 2025. Owners will be also supported by a standard four-year/60,000-mile warranty – trumping the three years offered in mainland Europe.

Buying and owning

• Best buy: Leapmotor T03

There’s only one trim level and battery size of Leapmotor T03 available at the moment. The only option is pearlescent paint, which costs £650, but you only get a choice of either Glacier blue or Starry silver, so we’d stick with keeping it cheap and only go for the free Light white colour.

Alternatives

Speaking of cost, there are very few all-electric rivals to the Leapmotor T03 at this £15,995 launch price. The most obvious is the Dacia Spring, which sits either side of the Leapmotor at £14,995 for the Expression variant, and £16,995 for the Extreme. While the Dacia has a bigger boot and a much more recognisable badge, the Leapmotor has more range and is better equipped. 

A slightly leftfield alternative is the £17,990 Microlino. It’s a modern interpretation of the classic Isetta bubble-car design from the sixties, so it’s certainly got plenty of character. The Microlino’s 114-mile range isn’t the best, though, and neither is its performance, because it tops out at 56mph. In reality, it’s more of a city-based car than the Leapmotor. 

Leapmotor T03 pictures

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