Stellantis wants its Chinese Leapmotor vehicles to drive more like European cars

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European car giant Stellantis wants vehicles from its Chinese brand Leapmotor to drive more like cars from stablemates such as Alfa Romeo, Opel and Peugeot.

Leapmotor vehicles are being sold outside of China by Leapmotor International, a joint-venture company majority owned by Stellantis.

The company last week launched its latest vehicle in Europe, the Leapmotor B03X compact electric SUV that will cost from about $30,000 drive-away in Australia later this year.

“There is a Chinese way of tuning the car, and then there is a non-Chinese way of tuning the car,” said Francesco Giacalone, Leapmotor International’s global head of brand strategy, product and marketing, when Chasing Cars asked if the company was looking to bring a more European flavour to its China imports.

Giacalone admitted there hadn’t been sufficient time to improve the initial Leapmotor vehicles since the partnership with China’s Leapmotor Technologies was formed in mid 2024.

“The first [engineering] exercise on the Leapmotor C10 [midsize SUV] had been very minor because we basically had six months since the decision to launch an investors event, and then we started the B10 [compact SUV] which had been already conceived with a lot of [discussion] loops between Stellantis [and Leapmotor]. 

Giacalone said the B05 electric hatch was “another level in terms of handling and driving feel”.

The B05 debuts in Australia in October, joining the C10 and B10 SUVs already on sale locally.

Leapmotor said it was also pleased with its additional development work on the B03X, yet also revealed it was in the process of fixing the steering.

“With B03X we did a good job I think on the hardware versus the Chinese version, from a suspension tooling point of view, [though] we still need to do something in terms of precision of the steering wheel. 

“I’m not ashamed to tell it because we have tested [the steering], and this will fix it with software. It’s just software OTA [over the air]. 

Leapmotor said the download would be borrowed from the tuning set-up of the B05 hatch that the company believes is its best chassis work yet. The company confirmed the update would be done before any customers leave showrooms in their B03X.

“But yes, car by car, we have now a design centre in Munich – not only to design but as well to test some technologies to have more interactions with the European team that can help to provide the right feedback to the Chinese team, and there are more and more exchanges. So any future products, you will see more and more [European influence].