Energy
Wednesday, September 14th, 2022 12:30 pm EDT
I regularly follow updates of EV sales from China here on CleanTechnica. This is because Chinese automakers are probably our best bet for mass production of battery-electric vehicles that across all vehicle segments that will reach all corners of the world at affordable prices. Over the last decade or so, Chinese solar panel makers ramped up production big time, resulting in massive price reductions. Cheaper solar panels resulted in strong growth in the utility scale, C & I, and residential solar sectors around the world.
Chinese EV manufacturers have been ramping up production of electric vehicles, boosted by strong demand at home. They have already started to export some of these vehicles to Europe and other places, but are now starting to really position themselves for global exports on a larger scale. A look at the top selling EVs in China over the past couple of years shows that there are a couple of models that have been featuring regularly in the top 20 charts. These models have also been consistently selling close to 5,000 units or more per month. One of these models is the Leapmotor T03 smart electric mini car. Compared to the other small/mini electric cars in China, the Leapmotor T03 probably provides the best value as we can see from the specs, stats, and pricing below.
Leapmotor says that the T03 has an electric motor with a max power of 80 kW, max torque of 158 Nm, and has a self-developed integrated electric driving system with efficiency up to 92.6%. It has three driving modes — Sport, Standard, and Economy. It has a high performance Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery (LFP) with a battery energy density of 136.6Wh/kg. The 41kWh pack has a range of 403 km on the CLTC cycle (about 300 km in WLTP). The T03 also has three levels of regenerative braking and three energy recovery modes that can contribute to an increased CLTC range by 15%-25%.
The T03 comes with Iflytek’s 3.0 Intelligent Voice Recognition System, an 8-inch LCD dashboard screen, a 10.1-inch HD central display with touch control, and Mobile App Remote Control for air conditioning settings and automatic parking. The Leapmotor T03 starts from the equivalent of about €10,000 in China — a super awesome price for such a great little car. Many people have been looking out for this car in terms of when people outside China can get one. Well, it has come to pass! Last week, Leapmotor began its global sales program, starting with Israel. Leapmotor partnered with “a well-known company in the Israeli automotive industry.”
The announcement also said “T03 has passed the EU vehicle form certification, obtained the sales license in the European market, and can be officially registered in all EU countries. This also fully proves the high standards of Leapmotor in terms of R&D technology, manufacturing process, product quality, etc. , and also lays a solid foundation for Leapmotor to deploy in overseas markets such as Europe.”
This is a great little car at a great price. I hope Leapmotor will be able to ramp up production as fast as practically possible so we can start seeing these T03s in more places around the world.
Image courtesy of Leapmotor
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