A few days after Leapmotor launched its C10 more details are emerging of the Stellantis backed company’s next car. The C16 will launch later this year and will come in six and seven seat versions.
Fast Technology say the C16 can be seen as a half price Li L8, just as the C10 can be seen as a cheaper L7. Certainly Leapmotor make no pretensions of learning from Li Auto. Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Leapmotor, recently said: “Every detail of LeapmotorC10 learns from the Li L7. In terms of understanding user needs, product control, comfort, car machine display mode, etc., Li Auto is worth studying.”
Recent spy shots give us more information about the upcoming C16. The C10 was Leapmotor’s first car designed as a world car and the C16 follows on with this using the new Leap 3.0 architecture and design language. Both externally and with the interior the C16 closely follows the C10 formula with a very obvious family relationship, something that cannot be said for earlier Leapmotor models.
Exterior styling is not only similar to the Leapmotor C10 but it is also quite similar to that of the L series SUVs from Li Auto. There are light bar taillights which wrap around the whole rear.
Inside the front is very similar to the C10 with an LCD instrument panel and large floating centrally mounted infotainment unit. There is still no separate entertainment screen for the front passenger, however, channeling the L series from Li there is a fold down entertainment screen on the ceiling for second-row passengers. The spy shots are of the six seater and we can see that the second row has individual seats with armrests.
Details about the car are currently quite limited however the C16 uses CTC 2.0 to integrate the cells to the chassis so making them load bearing and reducing the overall weight of the car. There will be a new oil-cooled electric motor and the car will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 to control the cockpit.
The Li L8 currently retails for 339,800-399,800 yuan (47,250-55,600 USD) and so if the C16 is to be a half price L8, as rumored, we should expect prices around the 200,000 yuan (27,800 USD) mark. The C16 will come in both EREV and BEV versions.
To keep costs down the C16 will likely follow the route taken by the C10 and be only available as a RWD car, power though is likely up on the 170 kW electric motor in the smaller car. The range extended version will probably use the same 1.5L H15R petrol engine as a power generator. Battery packs will almost certainly be lithium iron phosphate as in the C10. We should also expect the C16 to come in smaller than the Li L8, and probably a bit under 5 meters in length.
Stellantis acquired 20% of Leapmotor in an October 2023 deal. As part of the deal the two companies formed a joint venture called Leapmotor International (Stellantis holds 51% and Leapmotor controls 49%) to sell and manufacture Leapmotor vehicles outside China. The C16 is likely to be exported under this arrangement.
