Leapmotor ute on the drawing board for Australia

Leapmotor’s long-rumoured ute has inched a step closer to reality, with Leapmotor Australia boss Andrew Hoang confirming the brand’s engineers in China are now investigating what a dual-cab would look like – and how it would be specced for Aussie buyers.

While the ute segment is becoming oversaturated in Australia, the vehicles are still hugely popular roughly accounting for around one in five of all new car sales right now.

Understandably, Leapmotor is looking at what opportunities are out there in ute land.

“We’ve certainly put our request in that that’s what we would like here for Australia,” Hoang told carsales this week.

“The team in China are investigating in terms of what such a product would look like and how it would be specced. That’s probably as much as I can say from a development standpoint.”

Pressed on whether he was denying a Leapmotor ute was in the works, Hoang was blunt: “No, not at all.”

Is the brand developing one? “Definitely looking at it.”

The Aussie arm has put its hand up, and the boffins at HQ are now sketching out the brief.

What that ute would look like, what would power it and how it would stack up against a fast-growing pack of Chinese utes – think BYD Shark 6, GWM Cannon Hi-4T, Nissan Navara Pro PHEV, JAC Hunter PHEV and Chery Stockman – remains firmly under wraps.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a bit hard to make comment on that,” Hoang said when asked how a Leapmotor ute would stand out.

“It is definitely something that we’re looking at,” he added.

Don’t expect a race to the bottom on price, either. Hoang said any new model – ute included – would follow the same playbook as the B10, B05 and B03X: plenty of kit for the money, rather than the cheapest price tag in the segment.

Indeed, he said it wouldn’t be positioned as a budget ute by default.

“Not necessarily, not from a price standpoint. I talked about it being of good value,” he said.

“Even B05, it’s not the cheapest car in the segment, but I’m pretty confident from a value standpoint, customers will see that as, ‘Hey, for what that exchange is, I’m getting a lot for it.’”

Leapmotor already sells range-extender ‘Hybrid EV’ versions of the C10 and B10 SUVs here, which use a 1.5-litre petrol engine purely as a generator. Whether that tech, a full EV or something else entirely would underpin a ute is anyone’s guess at this stage.

There’s no timing, no powertrain and no design to speak of yet, so don’t go clearing space in the shed just yet.

But with Stellantis in its corner and the dual-cab market still the beating heart of Aussie new-car sales, it’d be a brave call for Leapmotor not to have a crack. Next cab off the rank locally is the B03X light SUV, due in showrooms in November.

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