The Chevrolet C10 is an older pickup truck with a classic look. In the episode, it’s mentioned because someone has a modernized version of that idea using Leap Motors. The point is how people keep the classic style but change the power system.
The Leapmotor C10 is an electric car. In this chat, the big point is that it drives with power to the rear wheels, and David thinks that makes it feel better than some front-wheel-drive alternatives—plus it’s priced to feel like a good deal.
Rear-wheel drive means the power goes to the back wheels. That can make the car feel different when you accelerate and turn compared with cars where the front wheels get the power.
Front-wheel drive means the power goes to the front wheels. It can make a car feel different than rear-wheel drive, especially when you’re accelerating or turning.
The Kia EV6 is an electric car, meaning it runs on electricity instead of gasoline. The episode mentions it because people like how it drives. It’s the kind of EV that’s meant to be comfortable and easy to use day to day.
“GT line spec” means a more equipped version of a car, with extra features. David’s point is that to match what the Chinese cars include, you’d often have to pay for a higher trim level.
The Toyota Tundra is a large pickup truck. It’s the kind of vehicle people use for hauling or everyday driving with a lot of space. In this episode, it’s also referenced because of a color called “Tundra Grey.”
WLTP is a standardized test number car companies use to estimate how far an EV can go on a full charge. Your real range can be higher or lower depending on how and where you drive.
The Suzuki Vitara is a small SUV model the owner had before the Leapmotor C10. They mention theirs was a 2017 turbo petrol version with front-wheel drive.
The Suzuki Swift Sport is a sportier version of the Swift. The speaker is saying the same kind of engine/power setup is used across these Suzuki models.
The Suzuki Swift 5-door is a small hatchback with four side doors, designed for practical everyday driving. In the episode, it’s mentioned alongside the Swift Sport, which helps explain the guest’s car background. The main idea is that it’s a compact, easy-to-use car.
“Entry level price” means it’s meant to be one of the cheaper options. The speaker says the C10 tries to keep costs down but still includes a lot of features.
Heating and ventilation are seat climate features. Heating warms the seats, and ventilation helps keep you cooler by blowing air through the seat area.
Driver profiles are saved settings for the car. If more than one person drives, each person can save their preferred seat and mirror positions and recall them quickly.
20-inch wheels means the rims are fairly large. Bigger wheels can make the car feel more responsive, but they can also affect ride comfort depending on the tire setup.
A rear light bar is a long strip of lights across the back of the car. Some cars can animate it with different effects when you turn the car on or off.
Ambient lights are the mood lighting inside the car. In this case, they can change colors and even react to what’s happening when you reverse or play music.
Reverse sensors help you avoid obstacles when backing up. They detect how close you are to something, and in this case the car’s lights change color to warn you.
Term
audio
Audio-reactive lighting means the car’s lights can move or pulse along with the music you’re playing. It’s a fun effect that makes the cabin feel more interactive.
Karaoke mode is an infotainment feature that turns the car’s screen/audio system into a karaoke-style experience. It’s an example of “fun” software features that don’t necessarily improve driving performance but can make the car feel more entertaining to live with.
A “software-defined” car is one where a lot of the car’s features are controlled by software. That means the car can support more apps and features, and sometimes those can be improved over time.
Here, “assistant” means a built-in digital helper in the car. It can show messages on the screen—like warning you it’s going to rain—and make the car feel more interactive.
Term
white pad style screen
They’re describing a big, tablet-like screen on the dashboard. It’s part of how the car’s software and menus are presented to the driver.
Apple CarPlay is a system that connects your iPhone to the car so you can use certain apps on the car’s screen. If a car doesn’t have it, you may have to use the car’s built-in apps instead.
Android Auto is a system that connects your Android phone to the car so you can use certain apps on the car’s screen. Without it, you typically rely more on the car’s built-in software.
A customizable shortcut button on the steering wheel is a user-control feature that lets the driver quickly toggle or access functions. Here, it’s used to disable most ADAS features with a single tap, reducing unwanted interventions.
Lane keep (often part of lane-keeping assist) uses cameras and/or sensors to detect lane markings and help keep the car centered. When the system thinks you’re too close to a lane edge, it can issue alerts and even apply steering input to bring you back.
Concept
reviews get out of date so quickly
Car reviews can become outdated because the car can change after the review is posted. Updates can improve or change how the car works, so a newer version may feel different.
It means your electricity price can be different at different times of day. If your plan is cheaper overnight, you can charge your EV then and pay less.
A kilowatt hour (kWh) is the unit for how much electricity you use. If a charger charges, say, $1 per kWh, that’s what you’re paying for the energy you put into the battery.
Public charging means charging your EV at stations you don’t own—like chargers in parking lots or along roads. The episode notes that it can be more expensive and may require more planning than home charging.
Off-peak means charging when fewer people are using electricity, so the price is often lower. They’re saying timing your charging can sometimes make a big difference.
The Dodge Charger is a car that’s built for performance and sporty driving. The episode talks about charging during cheaper hours, which is about lowering the cost of electricity. That matters for anyone who plugs in to charge their vehicle.
That means the chargers can put out around 50 kilowatts of power. More power usually means you can charge faster, which matters when you’re traveling and need to top up quickly.
CharterNet is a company that runs EV charging stations. In this episode, it’s mentioned as one of the networks that helped build charging coverage across the country.
The Tesla network is Tesla’s system of charging stations. This part says the C10 can use them, but the owner prefers other chargers because Tesla’s are pricier.
A charging subscription is a membership that can make charging cheaper. The speaker is saying it might help if you drive often, but they don’t need it because there are other options.
“Excess-free” means you don’t have to pay the usual deductible amount to use your insurance. They’re saying their policy covered windscreen replacement without that extra cost.
A distributor is the local company that helps support the brand in that area. In this story, they helped figure out the right windscreen part to replace the damaged glass.
Term
ADES calibration
When a car has safety cameras or sensors, they sometimes need to be re-aimed after the windshield is replaced. ADES calibration is that re-check so the safety features work correctly again.
Windscreen replacement just means replacing the front glass. On newer cars, it can be a bit more complicated because safety sensors may need to be set up again afterward.
A cabin filter cleans the air that comes into the car’s interior through the heating and air conditioning. Changing it can help keep the air fresher and reduce dust.
“Peak charge rate” means the fastest speed the car can charge at its best moment. It’s the top number you see, but it doesn’t tell the whole story about how quickly you’ll add charge overall.
A charging curve is how the charging speed changes as the battery fills up. Some cars charge fast at first and slow down quickly; here they’re saying this one stays fast for a long stretch before slowing later.
“Pet mode” is a setting that keeps the car’s climate running while you’re parked. It’s meant to help keep pets comfortable for a limited time, with the car showing a message on the screen.
“Guard mode” here is basically a pet-safety cabin feature. It lets you run the car’s climate system so the cabin stays comfortable for a while while you’re away.
“Air con” means the car’s air conditioning. In this context, it matters because pet/camp modes keep the cabin comfortable by using electricity from the battery.
“Camp modes” are settings that make it easier to hang out in the car while it’s parked. The idea is that the car can run comfort features without you needing extra gear.
They say the car can provide about “three kW” of power for small appliances. That means you can run things like a vacuum without needing to plug into a wall outlet with long extension cords.
Term
outage
An “outage” means the power goes out at home. They’re saying the car can still power important things for a while, like a backup generator for small essentials.
They compare the Leapmotor C10 to a Toyota RAV4 hybrid. The point is that to get similar comfort features like heated or ventilated seats, you often have to buy a more expensive RAV4 version.
LIVE
Hello everyone and welcome to Kill It Water podcast about electric vehicles, renewable
energy, autonomous driving and much much more. My name is Bode and I am your host and on today's
episode we are going to sit down and talk to David from New Zealand about his Leap Motors C10.
We have talked quite a bit about Leap Motors recently. It's almost every time we mention
Stellantis actually we have to mention that Leap Motors is kicking their behinds in terms of
of electrification which Stellantis is a big investor in Leap Motors. But yeah we talked to
David. He tells us you know kind of what his thought process was when he decided to go electric
and then what vehicles he looked at prior to buying the Leap Motors, what he owned before
owning the C10 and then you know we just get a good chat about whether or not he likes it or not.
One of the questions I asked which I thought was relevant is did he have any apprehension about
buying a Chinese vehicle and I'll let him answer that but yeah in all and all this was a really
good chat. So without further ado let's go ahead and welcome David to the show.
Thank you buddy, good to be here. David you live in New Zealand. You have
much more many more choices as I found out living in New Zealand for EVs. You purchased
recently a Leap Motors C10. Were there other EVs that you were looking at before you made the
choice to go with the C10? Really the only EV that we were seriously looking at as an alternative
before we tried the C10 was the BYD 803 which is about the same price point.
We also much preferred how the C10 drove a rear-wheel drive versus front-wheel drive.
The 803 is a bit softer and it's sort of bouncy and it's ride but we drove a
quite a few different variations and the original VZ4X and things like either the
CARE EV6 quite like the EV6 to drive but it's nearly half as much again cost-wise over the C10
and you had to get the GT line spec to get close to the same features that Chinese were offering.
The value proposition was really why we went with the C10 above all else.
My wife particularly liked the look of the C10. We've gone with a colour called tundra grey
which is a sort of beige-y colour which is quite unique but yeah no we did try a few but
really the C10 just seemed to tickle all the boxes and also a great price.
Other than price what were some of the most important features that we were looking for?
Space and comfort. My wife particularly liked the SUV body style which the C10 is. It's
kind of like a station wagon almost whereas a lot of the small Chinese SUVs are more like
glorified hatchbacks. So yeah space, comfort definitely. I prefer the rear wheel drive as an
option. What was the price point? So we paid $33,000 which is about $30B1 US. I mean here that's
great. Yeah yeah exactly so at a three at the time was pretty much identical pricing. There's
offers the same range. The other three are a bit more efficient being smaller. So yeah
420Ks WLTP. What are you getting in real world though with your range? Around town we would
exceed that. On open roads in summer we're getting 350-380. Got down to about 300 in the
down to 0 degrees Celsius so freezing. Are you around Auckland or yet? We're in Topo which is
roughly halfway between Auckland and Wellington so half way between the two largest cities.
We did Auckland back last Monday so it's approximately 600km round trip. Car took about an
hour to recharge while we were shopping and doing things around Auckland so pretty easy.
Tought it broke on the way back and topped up and more than enough to get home.
Absolutely perfect range for our use. What did you drive before you got a C10?
We had a Suzuki Vitara so it was a 2017 turbo. Front wheel drive,
1.4L turbo petrol in SUV sort of that but really just a hatchback. Same powertrain as what they
put in the Swift Sport. I don't know if you're familiar with the Suzuki Swift Sport though.
I don't even know if Suzuki cars are sold here in the US. I know we have some Mitsubishi's
like one brand or one trim. Right. Mitsubishi definitely going out. It wasn't for the Outlander
and the Ute or Pickup. They wouldn't exist here either.
But it seems like they're doing some interesting things. It sounds like they're
Foxconn are building an EV in Thailand or Taiwan. It sounds like their
might brand that as a Mitsubishi. Oh yeah.
Some markets including ours. So yeah. It's interesting how different brands do different things.
Yeah. No, for sure. When you went from your Suzuki to your Leap Motor C10,
what were some of your impressions? Well, I mean, C10 is way bigger. The one. Again,
there's similar sort of market positions. The Suzuki is sort of sold as a fairly budget
but good value vehicle and that was one of the reasons we bought it originally.
And going to the C10 is much the same. So it's sort of the entry level price,
but you get a lot of vehicle, features for the money. It wasn't anything that Suzuki had
that we didn't get with the C10, but obviously C10 got a whole lot more. The C10,
not a performance vehicle by any stretch, but it's slightly quicker than the Vitara
because it's substantially bigger and not losing performance was a thing.
Did you have any sort of apprehension about buying a Chinese built vehicle? Did it feel risky?
No, not at all. Definitely not risky. I've sort of been following quite the market generally,
watching international reviews and things of Chinese brands and sort of new of Leap Motor
before they came here that we got in pretty early. I think ours is one of the original
shipment into the country. The fact that they're backed by Stellantis,
reputation gives them much of a thing, but it does put some weight behind the brand.
And the local distributor has been around for a long time, lots of different brands,
including a lot of Stellantis products. And they've been around for a long time.
They've got a pretty good reputation for how they operate. So I felt that even though the
Leap Motor brand is Chinese, there was going to be local support for it. And so yeah,
going to Chinese definitely wasn't really a thing.
When you look more, I guess, a better way to say this, how does the car feel? Does it feel
like it's a budget car? Does it feel like it's premium? Is it something in between?
Definitely in between and probably slightly more premium than budget. Very nice interior feel,
very little in the way of hard plastics and even those feel good, robust.
No rattles, no sacks, no untoward noises or anything at all in our ownership. Even now,
it still feels as it did when we got it. So yeah, and compared to the Suzuki,
which was all hard plastics, it feels, yes, something premium.
And I think the features, it's glass, panoramic roof, it's artificial leather,
but it's a really soft, supple feeling, heating and ventilating, front seats,
and heated steering wheel, heated mirrors. Everything's electric, of course,
electric seats, driver profiles. So why can't I get in, tap out, use a profile and adjust the
seat and mirrors to your seating? I know you had a, when you first saw the car,
or when your wife first saw the car, she liked how spacious it was inside,
but what were some of the other design aspects that kind of attracted you to this car?
Sure, it's a big car. Proportions are pretty good. 20-inch wheels, got so cool things like a
rear light bar, does sort of animations on our power down. It's a little gimmicks, but they're
quite attractive looking, adds a point of difference. Privacy glass on the back, so yeah,
it just is a nice looking car, we think. Yeah, and the things like when the car does certain
things to shut down or when you turn it on and it kind of welcomes you or any of the things, like,
I think that brings, it's not value for the sake of it does something that makes your day
any easier, right? But it brings value in that you bought this thing for X amount of dollars,
and when you get in, it makes you happy because you're like, oh, that's a cool feature. I like
this feature. Yeah, absolutely. And things like ambient lights to contribute to that, you can
change the colors, they do different things, they integrate with the reverse sensors, so you get
close to the object, the lights go from basic color to orange, to red or yellow, orange, red,
as you get closer to objects and things like that. So it's nice little integrations.
If you so choose, you can match them to your audio as well, and they can pulse to the music.
Oh, nice. Just again, all gimmicks, but quite cool things, but yeah, just a lot of things that
you appreciate over time. So one of the things that I thought Tesla did really well early on
is everything that they built into their car. There was a lot of purpose built into their car,
but there was also a lot of silliness and a wink and a nod that, you know, this is a car,
it should be fun to own. It doesn't, not everything has to be, there doesn't need to be a reason for
everything to be there, right? We can have karaoke mode in the car, whatever, to make it just a
little bit more fun. Yeah, absolutely. And again, with anything sort of software based, software
defined cars, whatever you want to call them, and that is so much easier to implement.
Do you have any experience with the Neo, Rand? No, I mean, I'm only following them on YouTube and
things. We are supposed to be getting their far fly here this year. Oh, yeah. But I haven't seen a
formal announcement yet. Yeah, I love their little assistant. I don't, I can't remember what it's
called, but it's, yeah, noomi. Yeah, like just silly fate. It makes silly. It's just, if anybody
doesn't know, it's just a little screen that if it rains, it'll start raining. It'll show on the
screen that it's going to start raining. When you get in, it welcomes you. You can, you know,
I don't know, there's just lots of little things. Again, provides no value in reality,
but it makes you happy that you spent however much money on this car. I think that's underrated in
the auto industry. Absolutely. And I think in China, brains have to have to differentiate themselves
one way. And obviously, it's one thing that Neo does that others don't. And it's such a competitive
market. And most of the cars have all the features. How do you differentiate? And that's,
you know, gimmicks or whatever you're going to call it is one way of doing that.
No, that's it. That is a really good point. And actually, not one that I think I've explored
very much. So you've given me something to think about. So we've talked a little bit about the
design of the car, the interior. What were your thoughts when it comes to the software?
Initially, good. It's a white pad style screen on the dash like so many of the Chinese are. It's
easy to navigate around. It's fast and responsive. I knew go into it that there was no Apple CarPay
or Android Auto. And again, it was a consideration, but not not deal breaker for us. It sounds like
for some people that is a bit of a deal breaker. But it's got Spotify built in. It's got the
Bluetooth good quality and the nav maps work well. Yeah, it all just works. We haven't missed
CarPlay at all. So wife's had a Spotify account. So that's our primary audio source. And it works
great. And the sound system is fantastic. But we've had no issues with software at all. We've
received four significant updates since we've had it. And every update adds significant and
meaningful changes. And one of the biggest criticisms of the CTN particular was its ADAS
system or systems being particularly intrusive, loud beeps and bongs. If you go over what a thought
was to spend it by a kilometer an hour, it would start alerting you. The driver's section monitor
was overly zealous if it didn't think you were paying attention. But yeah, we received an update
within a couple of months of owning it and it made those better and new updates since it's
just improved on it further. They've now added a shortcut button on the steering wheel that you
can customize in the latest update. That means you can add ADAS features to that button. So a
single tap of that disables most of the ADAS system, which is very nice to have. I enjoy
driving. I don't want to have systems that distract you or overly zealous in how they operate. And
the lane keep particularly, if you drive what it thinks is too close to either side of the lane,
it bings first and then tries to steer you back into the lane, which it's definitely a lot better,
but I still just like to feel I'm in control. And that customization lets you do that.
But no, on the whole, this office is great and it's, yeah, it works.
My wife's car is really overzealous, the Herkea car.
And we went in, go ahead, what's that?
Yeah, no, it's definitely not an elite motor thing. I think the Chinese specifically get
bad rap for their ADAS systems, but talking to owners of newer gears, they tour
in the same boat, particularly lane keep and drive awareness things. And
from my understanding, those gears are even more difficult to disable.
They are 100% correct. We were driving in California on a narrow kind of two lane road
and it was windy and I didn't want to be hugged in the center line. I'd much rather hugged the
outer line and it kept pushing me back into the middle and I was like, I do not want to be here.
I'd rather be a little closer to the right end, right part of the right end side
of this road than where you're putting me. No, absolutely. I don't know if you know
New Zealand roads at all, but that would define 90% of our roads are that,
relatively narrow two lane oncoming traffic and yeah, quite windy. So yeah,
anything that tries to pull you close to the center of the road is not what you want to do.
100%. With that, how would you compare like driving it in the city versus doing road trips?
Oh, fantastic. I mean, my wife drives it to work and back every day. It's particularly
efficient around town, of course. We're in a small town, so you know, a round trip for her's
10 kilometers and six miles. Day to day, we were charged once or twice a fortnight.
We don't have solar yet, so it's just charging off the grid. But
we have an overnight tariff. It works absolutely fantastically for us. And road trip, again,
it's comfortable, fantastic sound system, enough performance. I think it's good to drive. Watching
video reviews is very much, you get the presenters opinion a lot and some people say,
oh, it handles great and it drives great. And others say it's rubbish. It's very hard to
really know what it's like based on reviews. Nothing against reviews. They've got a job to do.
And they're reviewing a lot of cars. It would be fantastic if they could sort of
add some commentary as to what they're comparing things against. If they say a car handles badly,
what are they comparing against? Are they comparing? It's not cost the same. It's on the same
market. Any SUV is going to handle poorly compared to a sports sedan or
it's hard to know when they are saying something that handles badly in what context.
That is a really good point. Recently, I've had a few car reviewers on,
and I would like to have them back on to just maybe three or four of them and just discuss
what kind of things are important to you as a reviewer and how are you measuring it.
I think that's a, because everybody here right now, everybody has a different opinion.
And some people are really very realistic in what to expect. And some people are like,
this is just my bugaboo and I'm going to hit every car that tickles that bugaboo.
Yes, very much. Again, with the new vehicles and of the updates,
reviews get out of date so quickly that the changes that are noted over there update can
make to a vehicle. Not so much the driving dynamics, but pretty much everything else
can be improved or made different with an update. So if you're watching a review that's a year old,
it can be quite a different car now. You almost need reviews to go back and do a review of an
updated car and see how they think it compares and how it's improved.
Agreed. You mentioned that you have a tariff at night. What does that mean to people in
like the United States? Does that mean you get a little relief in terms of what you pay for
charging or what does that mean? We have a lot of different energy retailers.
We've already got four major electricity companies come as a generate and then you buy from a
retailer. There's a few links to the chain, but every retailer, if it sets their sale price
of electricity, most don't do a time of day or type of use based charges, though there are a couple
now doing that. So you get substantially cheaper rates of peak things. But our plan is our overnight
rate from 11pm to 7am is half our day rate that we currently pay. It's just gone up on the first
April, but it's about 40 cents per kilowatt hour during the day and it's 20 overnight.
So a full charge of a car costs about eight dollars.
Nice. Yeah, we were talking. What did you say? It was a two dollars a liter right now?
It's gone up, yeah. So it's over three dollars now, yeah.
Yeah, so that's moving that to American dollars because I didn't think it would be this high,
but it was like seven dollars a gallon. Yes. And it was actually more, it was probably like
seven, 30. I don't remember what the number was, but yeah, that's significant. So if you're paying
eight for energy, huge savings. It is. And obviously road trips, public charging is
definitely more expensive. New Zealand also has, I think we're still the only country
with it. In fact, we pay a road user charge as an excise, if it's beyond every kilometer we drive.
So it's another 7.6 cents per kilometer, if it'll be.
No, that's being outside of charging though, right?
Absolutely, yeah. So it's on top of, yeah. So charging is cheap and if we could do all our driving
just on electricity costs, we'd save money first, but EVs here are still certainly cheaper than a
petrol diesel equivalent provided you can charge at home. If you're relying on public charging,
we pay between sort of 80 and a dollar per kilowatt hour for public charging.
And when you're then paying road user charges on top of that,
you know, it's almost cost competitive with a efficient petrol.
Yeah, same here, same here. Unless you're charging in very off peak or off busy times
at the charger, sometimes you can get better deals, but sometimes you can walk away from
a charger paying 50 or 60 bucks depending on how big your battery is.
Yeah, no, absolutely. We drive 600 kilometers a week ago from where we live to Auckland city and
back. Obviously to use public charging to recharge, but also 60 dollars in New Zealand to do that.
It's probably half to a third what would have cost us to do the same journey now
with this vehicle. But fuel alone, it's definitely cheaper in adding the road
user charges and offsets that a bit, but it's still cheaper.
Well, you talked a little bit about the public charging. What's the infrastructure look like
where you are in New Zealand? Do you have to really plan or do you just like, well, I know
there's going to be one around somewhere. It's getting better all the time.
And if you're following the main routes, definitely you don't need to plan so much.
Previous government, as you put in a plan or a previous government put in a plan to put
charging infrastructure into every 75 kilometers of the main highway network,
there will be a charger. I don't think they went so far as to finding what that charger would be
and we'll see to begin with, they were 50 kilowatt units. So look at that sort of plan,
and so I think that was pretty much that was met. So if you're traveling on the main roads,
which the majority of people here would be doing, every 75 kilometers there would be a charger
and that was probably four or five years ago that sort of plan was met and it's
grown substantially from there. We've got a network operator called CharterNet,
which was sort of the first one other than Tesla to roll out a nationwide network.
They're all over basically. They're not the cheapest, but they've got a good consistent
reliable network and a mixture of units from 50 kilowatts up to 300 kilowatt units.
Yeah, and they're like everything they are always growing, adding new units, adding new sites.
Are you able to charge on a Tesla network with your C10?
We can, yes, and I have done. We choose not to because they're sort of the dearest
operators for non-Teslas. And again, if you're doing a lot of trips, you'd probably sign up to
their subscription and get a discount rate, but because there's so many alternatives, we don't
need to. We've got two Tesla stations in town where we are. One is Tesla only and it's been
over a long time. The other is a newer station that's open to everybody.
I have charged there as a test and it works fine, but they're more expensive than everyone else.
And then you mentioned that one of the reasons why you felt comfortable buying
like lead motors specifically as a brand is Stellantis is a big backer in the company.
With that, have you had to have anything in terms of service done or repairs or any kind of warranty
coverage? Not warranty. We have had a first service and within the first three months of
ownership, we had a cracked windscreen, which were a replacement. So we had to go back to
a deal for that. That was an interesting exercise in itself. You first read our insurance company,
we have an excess-free windscreen repair replacement as part of our insurance policy.
Of course, talking to them, yeah, we can do that. Oh, what's this car? We've never heard of this
before. They had to go away and find out what the story was. They talked to the distributor and
I know we can source a windscreen. So yeah, we can do all that. Then came back and said,
oh, no, we can't actually do the job because we can't do the ADES calibration.
Oh.
So yeah, and then had to get back to the dealer. The dealer had it booked in or once insurance had
gone through, so yes, go ahead and book the windscreen replacement. We've just sold the last
screen in the country today. So we then had to wait for a new windscreen to come in, which I think
took four weeks in total and it was only a crack, so we were able to keep driving in the meantime.
A bit inconvenient, but even if parts aren't in the country, they're not that far away.
Another thing that was effectively bought, LinkMoto only had three dealers in the country.
We're halfway in between two of them. Just something we had to think about. If something
did go wrong, we didn't need to get it to a dealer. We're three hours away, but fortunately,
don't you touch wood, nothing other than the windscreen has gone wrong. I've had it in for its
first service, which was 12 months, 20,000 kilometer service intervals. It was $280.
The first service, unknowingly, the actual service was $80 and the rest was made up of a cabin filter,
which had a known ahead of time, you'd say, well, just some of the cabin filter, I'll fit that myself.
But anyway, when your major service cost is there, so it's a bit disappointing.
I just replaced the HEPA filters and the cabin filters in my car yesterday.
I'm glad I did it because I wouldn't want to pay somebody. It was already $90 just for the filters.
I don't want to pay somebody on top of that, but I totally understand where you're coming from.
It's like, man, I could have done that myself.
If you had to pick an area where the car could use some improvement in your opinion, what would you
pick? For our use, it's close to perfect. I don't think there's anything that we ourselves would
like improved. For other buyers, CarPlay or Android Auto would make it more appealing to other users.
I think there's a lot of people that won't even look at it because it doesn't have that. They
won't try and see what the system is. They'll look for another option that does have those features.
Charging speed would probably be another area that others might look at.
Again, for our use, it's perfect. We don't need it to charge faster.
So we get to the major centres from here without having to charge on the way
and our charge is generally sufficient to get home.
We have a little dog and we need brakes ourselves, so we would need to stop for five,
ten minutes, but that's plenty of time to top up while we do that. We're guaranteed to have
charge to get home. The peak charge rate is only 84 kW, which is not great on paper,
but it has a really flat curve, so it'll hold 84 kW from zero to 85%.
And it sort of tapes off to about 25 kW for the rest. It's a really good curve if you ignore the
peak rate. That's true. What is one feature that you think is kind of underrated that
maybe is even under-reported by reviewers? Yeah, that's a good one. We think it's a good car to
drive. It handles well. It's comfortable. There's a lot of space, particularly for the rear seats.
Really stretch out into it. It has, they call it guard mode, but it's officially a pet mode,
so you can leave your animals in the car for an hour of time with the air con going and
the message on the screen, camp modes. You can basically put it in a camp mode and sit in it,
be equal to load. Oh, nice. You run three kW off of it to priori appliances. I've used it because
it's there, just running vacuum or whatever to clean the car, and you're not having to run
extension leads. You can just plug in where the car's parked. I haven't had to use it.
Our car has been pretty stable, but it's nice to know that if there was an outage,
we could run essentials off the car. Again, it's a feature of the Chinese. Most of the Chinese
manufacturers here have all those features or variations of them,
but I think just as an all-round vehicle, we weren't going to buy one, but we looked at a RAV4
hybrid before looking at this, and on paper there, same sort of market space, similar overall size,
similar performance, but to get things like heated seats, ventilated seats,
those sorts of things. You need to get the top end RAV4, which is so much
dearer than what we paid for LCCN, and not electric.
Yeah, 100%. The vacuum thing, I only have two outlets in my garage that I can get access to,
and they're in the ceiling. It's a little bit of a pain in the rear. I do have an extension cord,
like a reeled up there on one of them, but man, would it be nice to just vacuum my car
where it is without having to get the reel down and move it over?
Absolutely. And it's those little things that you don't consider normally buying a car,
as those little conveniences. No, that's a big convenience in my opinion. Well,
David, thank you so much for agreeing to come on and chat about your experience with the C10.
And any last parting messages you would like to share before we part ways?
No, not about C10 specifically, I don't think. I think we basically cover everything.
That's how I'm sure you can tell where we love our C10. We've had a great run.
Absolutely recommend anyone looking, if they're in the market, that it's available. Go and check
it out. Take it for a center drive like a new vehicle. Not every car is going to suit every
buyer, but soon you don't add it to your list. Go and check it out. It's a great all-in-one car.
David, thank you so much for agreeing to come on and I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend,
buddy. Yeah, thank you so much. You too.
All right, everybody. I want to thank David for being so generous with his time.
And when I say generous with his time, there is a time difference between Arizona and New Zealand.
So it took a little bit of time for me, not for David, for me to figure out when we could do
this because I had to go through and I used Alison Sheridan's time shifter tool that she has.
Just type in pod feet and time shifter if you're interested to kind of get an idea when would
be the best time for both of us. Anyway, it worked out. So David, again, thank you so much
for coming on the show and chatting with me about your Leap Motor C10. All right, that is it for me.
I'm going to head to bed because I'm exhausted today and I've had a long one. So I hope you all
have a wonderful weekend. And on Tuesday, we will talk about GM's Q1 2026 earnings call.
Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that's what it is on Tuesday. All right, everybody. Thank you so much.
I will talk to you soon.
Thank you for listening.
About this episode
David from New Zealand walks through choosing the Leapmotor C10, comparing it to the BYD 803 and preferring its rear-wheel-drive feel. He and the hosts share real-world range versus “420Ks WLTP,” plus practical charging experiences and New Zealand electricity pricing. Cabin highlights include a panoramic roof, heated/ventilated comfort, and ambient lighting tied to reverse sensors. They also cover software updates, ADAS intrusiveness (and a steering-wheel shortcut), infotainment tradeoffs, and charging network options.
In this episode, host Bodie sits down with David from New Zealand to get an owner's perspective on the Leapmotor C10 electric SUV. David shares his transition from a gas-powered Suzuki Vitara to the C10, highlighting why its exceptional value, rear-wheel-drive dynamics, and spacious layout won him over against competitors like the BYD Atto 3. They dive into real-world range, the local support infrastructure provided by Stellantis’s investment, and how over-the-air updates have tamed early frustrations with the vehicle's driver assistance systems. David also details the unique conveniences of owning a modern software-defined car, from integrated ambient lighting alerts to using vehicle-to-load power capabilities for everyday tasks. Finally, the conversation hits on the realities of road-tripping and public charging infrastructure across New Zealand's scenic highways.
