Advert
The Leapmotor T03 is one of the most affordable EVs on sale, priced at just £15,995; it offers an agile driving experience and is well-equipped.
Leapmotor is a brand being sold by Stellantis, which has a joint venture with the Chinese company. The Leapmotor T03 city car is one of the most affordable EVs on sale, priced from £15,995.
The Leapmotor T03 is a five-door electric A-segment city car, measuring 3,620mm in length. However thanks to the electric platform, the interior offers more space than a conventional city car; rear legroom is never going to be vast in a car of this size, but is better than many rivals. The boot offers 210-litres of space, which is less than most rivals; the one-piece rear seat can be folded down by using a handle in the middle of the seat. There’s no storage space under the boot floor so a bag is provided to contain the charging cables.
There’s a single cup holder near the dashboard, and between the front seats there’s a very narrow storage space that can fit a phone, but there’s no other storage compartment between these two items, which seems to be wasted space.
The T03 has a 37.3kWh battery and an electric motor delivering front-wheel drive and 95hp (70kW) of power.
Design is very subjective; some people may like the T03’s styling, but other rivals could appeal more to European tastes. There isn’t much house style resemblance to the larger Leapmotor C10.
The Leapmotor T03 weighs just 1,175 kg, making it one of the lightest EVs on sale, resulting in an agile driving experience. Ride quality is also comfortable.
The T03’s 0-62 mph acceleration time of 12.7 seconds sounds slow, but performance up to 30 mph – the maximum speed limit for most urban areas – is perfectly sufficient.
You get three drive modes – Eco, Standard and Sport. Every time you start the car it defaults to Eco, which dulls the throttle response, so changing this to Sport offers more fun – but this has to be done via menus and sub-menus in the touchscreen, which requires three button-presses.
The gear selector on the right-hand side of the steering column doesn’t offer any option for adjusting the level of regenerative braking, and there are no other controls to do this, but the different drive modes offer varying levels, with Eco mode having most regen. There are also three modes to adjust the amount of steering assistance.
Virtually all EVs are almost silent, but a whine is evident from the T03’s electric motor.
The T03’s 10.1-inch central touchscreen is positioned low down on the dashboard, meaning that you have to look away from the road to view all the car controls – which is quite ironic seeing as though Chinese cars in particular generally beep at you for looking away from the road ahead.
The touchscreen quality is generally good, but there are a lot of menus and sub-menus, so a lot of button-pressing is needed to access many basic car controls; better shortcut buttons would be more helpful.
An interesting feature is the cabin temperature controls; there’s no read-out of the selected temperature, just a bar with a ‘minus’ on the left, and a ‘H’ on the right. The volume control on the screen features very small grey arrows which are not easy to press when you’re driving, although the car would probably prefer you to speak to it to change the volume. Changing media settings and radio stations isn’t a user-friendly process, something that seems to be common with many Chinese EVs. One thing to note about the T03 is that you can’t use Apple CarPlay.
Unlike the Leapmotor C10 which we’ve also tested, the T03 doesn’t beep at you excessively when you’re driving, although you do have to switch off a few safety assistance systems such as lane departure warning to eradicate beeps altogether.
The steering wheel has no reach adjustment – as is often the case with cars at the more affordable end of the pricing scale – and only a limited amount of height adjustment, so combined with manual seat adjustment, this means that the driving position won’t be ideal for many people.
The T03 has a traditional key unlike the Leapmotor C10, but the dark grey graphics on the black key are virtually impossible to see at night.
The Leapmotor T03 has a combined WLTP electric driving range of 165 miles, or up to 245 miles in the urban cycle. The average real-world range during a week on test was 142 miles. The T03 energy consumption is 4.5 miles/kWh.
The T03 has a maximum DC charging power of 48 kW, which doesn’t even quite make it into the rapid charging category: a 30% to 80% charge should take 36 minutes. The same charge should take around 3.5 hours using the 6.6 kW onboard AC charger.
The Leapmotor T03 is priced at £15,995, which makes it one of the most affordable EVs. One of its main rivals is the Dacia Spring – in Expression Electric 45 trim this is priced at £14,995, the Expression Electric 65 costs £15,995 – the same as the Leapmotor T03 – and the Extreme Electric 65 is £16,995.
Our T03 test car had the option of Glacier Blue paint (£650), taking the price as tested to £16,645. The other two colour options are Light White and Starry Silver.
The Leapmotor T03 is available in just one specification, with standard features such as 15-inch alloy wheels, satellite navigation, adaptive cruise control, panoramic sunroof with an electric power shade, a rear camera with parking sensors, automatic climate control, 10.1-inch touchscreen, 8-inch instrument cluster, electric windows all round, and Over-the-Air (OTA) upgrades.
At £15,995, the Leapmotor T03 is one of the most affordable electric cars. It’s well equipped, it’s light and therefore agile to drive, performance from standstill is perfectly adequate for urban driving, and the range of 165 miles is practical for a city car. The main issue with the T03 is whether people like its visual appearance – time will tell. The Leapmotor T03 is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 7 out of 10.
Drive an EV for less than you think with Select Car Leasing 
Save 20-50% on an EV through salary sacrifice with The Electric Car Scheme 
ClearWatt supports buyers, sellers and owners of EVs with app-based battery health testing and detailed EV data insights available for every used EV in the UK. Take the stress out of buying a used EV with ClearWatt and save 10% on all their products with promo code “GCG10”. 
Zapmap: UK's No.1 EV charging points app 2025. Zapmap helps EV drivers search for EV chargers, plan longer journeys and pay for charging. 
With Pod, you're in good hands. With over 15 years of EV charging experience, drivers trust Pod to keep their EVs charged and ready to go. 
Paul Clarke, GreenCarGuide Editor
