Chinese electric vehicle (EV) startup Leapmotor unveiled a new model based on its latest vehicle platform which it plans to use to expand in global markets.
The Hong Kong listed company was established in 2015 and sold 110,000 EVs in China last year, including the battery-powered C11 SUV and C01 sedan.
The first model underpinned by LEAP 3.0 architecture, the C10, was unveiled at this week’s IAA Mobility Show in Munich, Germany. It features technology including cell to chassis batteries, oil cooling electric drive, a SnapDragon 8295 chip empowered smart cabin and lidar based autonomous driving.
Speaking at the Munich event, Leapmotor CEO Zhu Jiangming said this year’s IAA Mobility “marks the starting point of Leapmotor’s globalisation strategy”. He said, starting with the C10, all forthcoming Leapmotor models would be developed with global markets in mind and meet global standards.
Leapmotor, based in Hangzhou, said it planned to launch five models built on the LEAP 3.0 platform in next two years for sale locally and for export to Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Middle East.
The company claims to have full vehicle development capability and has strong supply partnerships with global component manufacturers such as Nvidia, ZF and Bosch. At the show, Zhu said Leapmotor was open to collaboration with other global vehicle manufacturers and was understood to be discussing collaboration with Stellantis in China.
He said “openness, co-creation and global collaboration are key to achieving rapid proliferation of intelligent electric vehicles”.
