When it comes to the brand of Leapmotor, there may be some people who feel unfamiliar. But what you may not know is that this new domestic car company, founded in 2015, sold 14,567 vehicles in the past March, a year-on-year increase of 136%, second only to Wenjie and Ideal, beating Weilai, Xiaopeng and other car companies, and entering the top three new forces. The performance is quite impressive.
The all-new C11 of Leaprun
As the star model of Leapmotor, the Leapmotor C11 will deliver a total of 80,616 units in 2023, and it is the sales champion of the 15-200,000 new energy mid-size SUV segment in 2023. This time, we are honored to be invited to participate in the in-depth test drive of the new C11 held by Leapmotor in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, and through this test drive, we have a deeper understanding of the new car of Leapmotor.
Leapmotor's new C11 test drive
Appearance: Added color matching and polishing details
As a facelifted model, the new Leap C11 is not much different from the previous one in appearance, it also adopts a family-style design language, and the pure electric model we tested this time uses a closed grille with a through-type light strip, which is significantly different from the air intake added in front of the extended range version of the model, and also has a better integration and higher appearance. The body adopts a more streamlined design, and the wind resistance of the pure electric version is further reduced to 0.282cd.
The all-new C11
At the rear, the vehicle still uses through-type taillights, which is also a design preferred by many new energy vehicles, which can provide a better display effect at night. In terms of body color, the new Leap C11 has added a Songlan gray color, which looks a little light blue, which looks deep but not old-fashioned, which is more suitable for young people.
The all-new C11
In terms of the size of the vehicle, the length of the new car is 4750mm, although it does not look very large, but its wheelbase has come to 2930mm, which can be said to be far ahead of the new energy SUV of about 150,000 yuan!
The all-new C11
Interior: Technology allows for a large space
In terms of interior, the new C11 of Leapmotor provides two interior colors: Rock Gray + Fog Purple and Black + Camel Hair Brown, and this time we experience the latter, which is also a new color added this time. The new C11 is still equipped with three screens, including a 10.25-inch LCD instrument + a 14.6-inch central control screen + a 10.25-inch passenger screen. But unlike before, the central control screen of the new car has been changed from the previous embedded to a floating type, and the screen size has been upgraded to14.6 inches, and the resolution has also been increased from 1080P to 2.5K, both the visual perception and the display fineness have been greatly improved, and it also creates a better sense of luxury.
The new C11 interior
In terms of comfort, the all-new C11 also performs well. In addition to the entry-level smart version of the model, all models are equipped with front seat ventilation, heating and rear seat heating and other functions as standard, and the test drive is also equipped with an optional NAPPA leather package, which further improves the feel of the seats and steering wheel, and feels smooth and delicate. At the same time, the front seats are also equipped with a massage function, which can relieve the fatigue of the back to a certain extent during long-distance driving. Considering that the optional set only costs 5000, I personally think it is still necessary to choose.
The main driver supports electric seat adjustment and lumbar support
In terms of interior space, the all-new C11 also retains the previous characteristics of large space. Taking the author's height of 175cm as a reference, the headroom in the front row is close to two fists, and the legroom is also very generous. After adjusting the front row to a comfortable sitting position, the leg room can still be about two and a half fists, and the head also has close to two fists of space, and the space performance is still very rich.
Interior space with the seats folded down
In addition to the spaciousness, there are several points in the car that deserve praise. First, the vehicle still retains the manual air conditioning outlet adjustment. Nowadays, many new energy vehicles for the so-called sense of science and technology, cancel the manual adjustment of the air conditioning outlet, you need to adjust the air outlet position in the car machine, manual adjustment is more convenient, although you can not use the hidden air outlet may not be so good-looking, but I think practicality is more important. It is also worth mentioning that the vehicle is equipped with an electric sunshade, which can be switched on and off by voice directly through the car machine. In the process of this test drive, the sun in Yunnan is still relatively scorching, with the protection of the sunshade, there is no need to worry about the hot head of the canopy, which is more practical than those various variable canopies, and the cost is lower, which also reflects the attainment of Leap in terms of cost performance.
Manually adjustable air conditioning outlets
Power: Not top-notch but adequate
In terms of power, the all-new C11 two-wheel drive version is equipped with a rear motor with a maximum power of 200kW and a peak torque of 360Nm, whether it is an extended range version or a pure electric version. The top-of-the-line model, the 580 four-wheel drive version we tested, is equipped with dual motors with a maximum power of 400kW. In terms of battery, the all-electric version is available in 69.2 kWh, 78.5 kWh and 89.97 kWh (all-wheel drive) battery versions, with a CLTC pure electric range of 515 km and 580 km (the latter two) respectively. The extended-range version is also equipped with a 4-cylinder 1.5L range extender, with a battery capacity of 30.1 degrees and 43.74 degrees, with a CLTC pure electric range of 200km and 300km respectively, a CLTC comprehensive range of 1120km and 1210km, and a fuel consumption of 5.2L per 100 kilometers.
The all-new C11 of Leaprun
Dynamic test drive experience
After chatting about the static, let's talk about the feeling of this test drive. The test drive route includes congested roads, expressways, highways and mountain roads in the city, so the overall experience is very comprehensive. This test drive is a pure electric four-wheel drive intelligent driving version of the model, so the performance in terms of power is still good. Although the test car did not accelerate to zero to 100 due to road constraints, it was still able to feel good power performance at high speeds.
Test drive team
The vehicle offers four driving modes: Economy, Easy, Sport, and Custom. In economic mode, the power of the vehicle should be limited to a certain extent, and the feeling of acceleration is not too strong, but the feeling of kinetic energy recovery is also relatively weak, and there is a feeling of driving a fuel car. Then we tested the performance mode, and it felt completely different, with a noticeably more responsive throttle response and a stronger sense of recuperation, even without braking for most of the drive, and the experience felt somewhat similar to the one-pedal mode of some cars.
Four driving modes
After talking about the throttle response, let's talk about the turf performance of the new C11, which is also a major upgrade of the pure electric version of the model. In addition to the previous front double wishbone + rear five-link, the pure electric model also comes standard with FSD variable damping suspension. Due to the already good ground hardware, the new C11 still has a good sense of isolation in some sparse road surface vibration filtration, but it still retains a certain sense of the road, such as when passing through some small speed bumps, you can feel more obvious feedback. Although many domestic cars have begun to be equipped with air suspension, so that everyone has higher requirements for comfort such as vibration filtration, and the feeling of driving a non-air suspension vehicle after experiencing more air suspension may not be so strong, but as a model of about 150,000 yuan, it is still very commendable to be equipped with FSD function.
FSD variable damping suspension
In terms of the experience of the car machine, the new Leapmotor C11 also left a deep impression on me. One is in terms of voice control, the new car supports diverse and rich voice control, as long as it is a function that can be seen in the system settings, it can be turned on or off through dialogue, although it is a pity that the car is not equipped with physical buttons, but it is still "visible can be said" The addition of the function is as convenient as possible for the driver.
2.5K central control screen
The vehicle voice also supports 60 consecutive seconds of no-wake dialogue and sound source localization function, so as to avoid being interrupted and disturbed by others during the conversation. However, in the continuous dialogue, I think there is another point that can be optimized, that is, for some voice commands that may not be recognized, you can add a timely feedback function, the current system will directly display the text content for some unrecognizable situations but there is no feedback, which may affect the recognition of the voice content later, if you can add a timely feedback, the use experience should be better.
The vehicle supports AutoNavi map navigation
Because the new car uses the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip, the vehicle machine has also been greatly improved in terms of smoothness, whether it is animation effect, navigation map movement, or reaction speed has been visible to the naked eye, the vehicle is also equipped with a co-pilot entertainment screen in front of the co-pilot, supporting film and television, music playback and map navigation functions.
However, I personally think that this passenger screen is actually a bit chicken, and the narrower width is actually easy to cause the picture to rise and deform in terms of watching videos, and the viewing experience may not be very good. It is recommended that Leap Run or cancel the passenger screen directly and make the size of the central control screen larger. Or learn from the ideal and increase the size of the passenger screen to improve usability. In addition, the top-of-the-line model we tested is also equipped with a Face ID facial recognition system, which automatically adjusts the seat and other parameters to the preset mode directly through facial recognition by setting the personal seat adjustment parameters in advance.
Passenger screen
However, it is a pity that the intelligent driving version of our test drive has not officially pushed the high-end assisted driving function, although it is equipped with as many as 30 intelligent perception hardware + lidar + 254TOPS computing power of Nvidia Orin X chip, but it is still impossible to experience the content of intelligent driving, the person in charge of the zero run said, the function will be pushed in May. Speaking of push, the new C11 also supports vehicle-level non-inductive online OTA upgrades, compared to those vehicles that need special parking upgrades, think about how cool it is to know how cool the non-inductive OTA is.
The software and hardware configuration of the intelligent driving version of the C11
Thanks to the double-layer laminated glass equipped in the front row, even if the frameless windows are used, the vehicle's NVH performance is not bad, and the control of wind noise is relatively good, but the vehicle is still a little obvious when driving at high speeds, and I don't know if the effect will be weakened after changing to silent tires. If you feel that the high-speed noise is a bit loud, you can actually control it by playing music. Although it is the same 12-speaker as the old model, the new model still has improved in terms of sound quality and purity. Similar to BYD, Leap is also equipped with a karaoke function on the C11, but out of consideration for other people in the same car, it did not dare to test it during the test drive (laughs).
Bezel-less doors
Unfortunately, I didn't experience the range extender this time, and it is not clear how much the performance of the vehicle equipped with the four-cylinder range extender is compared to the previous three-cylinder after the range extender is turned on. However, other media teachers who have test-driven the extended range version said that the new four-cylinder engine has been greatly improved in terms of quietness, and there is basically no strong sense of presence after opening. Compared with the complaints of many owners caused by the loud noise of the original three-cylinder engine, Leap is still very persuasive. (However, the new program device seems to have ushered in an update as early as September last year, and this time it can only be said that it will continue to be used)
Extended-range model
After almost a day of in-depth test drives, I have a deeper understanding of the new C11 model. In all fairness, it's not for nothing that the C11 has been able to become Leap's most successful model in terms of sales. First of all, this is indeed a cost-effective model, the price of the pure electric version is a little more than 150,000, you can buy a model with a chassis using front double wishbone + rear five-link + FSD, which is absolutely rare in the same class. And the vehicle has been further upgraded to make the overall performance of the vehicle even better.
The all-new C11
Write at the end
If you are planning to buy a new energy vehicle of 15-200,000 yuan, you can really consider the new C11 model of Leapmotor, go to the local Leapmotor store for an interview drive, and feel the driving and riding experience of the car for yourself. In my opinion, whether it is an extended range or a pure electric model, the premium version is the most worthwhile version to buy, if you want a better experience, the 5000 yuan NAPPA leather option is best added. In this way, as long as the minimum is less than 170,000 yuan, you can buy a new energy medium-sized SUV with good comfort and driving feeling. Through this in-depth test drive, I finally understood why the C11 can become the real "handle" model of Leapmotor.