Leapmotor A10s brings LiDAR to a $13,800 electric SUV

Chinese EV maker Leapmotor has added a sportier-looking version to its best-selling small SUV. The A10s went on sale in China on Sunday, 18 October, at 92,800 yuan (about $13,810), CnEVPost reports. That buys a car with a roof-mounted LiDAR sensor and city navigation assistance at a price where most cars still make do with cameras alone.

What the "s" adds

In the spec sheet the car is listed as the A10 505S, and under the skin it is the same car as the existing A10 505 LiDAR variant. The differences are cosmetic and comfort-related:

• exclusive Mirror Night Black paint, gunmetal-grey badges, 18-inch black wheels and a red "S" on the tailgate;
• a Modern Gray cabin with red stitching, embroidered headrests and faux-suede seats;
• ventilated front seats (suction type) and ambient lighting in the rear.

Same tech as the LiDAR A10

The driver-assistance hardware carries over: LiDAR, a Qualcomm SA8650 chip for assisted driving and a Qualcomm SA8295 chip for the infotainment system. Leapmotor says the system supports navigation assistance on city streets and highways, and from one parking space to another. The body is unchanged too: 4,270 mm long, 1,810 mm wide and 1,635 mm tall, with a 2,605 mm wheelbase and five seats.

The battery uses LFP chemistry, which tolerates frequent charging to 100% better than most nickel-based packs. Our EV battery care guide explains why that matters for daily use, and our home EV charger guide covers home charging.

Why Leapmotor needs it now

The A10 launched on 26 March and quickly became a volume model, with 153,423 deliveries by the end of September. But September was its first month-on-month drop: deliveries fell 24% to 24,457, from a record 32,214 in August. Leapmotor as a whole delivered a record 105,656 cars in September and 666,539 in the first nine months. To reach its target of 1 million cars this year, it needs about 111,000 a month in the fourth quarter, CnEVPost calculates.

A cheap, LiDAR-equipped special edition fits the pattern of China's crowded EV market, where electric and plug-in cars now make up a record share of sales, as we reported in our story on China's September EV share. Leapmotor has not said whether the A10s will be sold outside China.