Leapmotor and IM Motors Drive China EV Momentum

China’s EV market closed March with a burst of product momentum, strong order signals, and a fresh reminder that the industry’s next battleground is no longer just range or price. Leapmotor’s newly launched A10 appears to have become an instant volume hit, with dealer-channel estimates pointing to nearly 20,000 orders within 72 hours, while IM Motors opened pre-sales for the LS8, a tech-heavy extended-range SUV aimed squarely at the fast-growing RMB 250,000-350,000 family segment. At the same time, the broader industry backdrop—from Seres’ rising profitability to new debate around Robotaxi timelines and AI cockpit integration—shows how Chinese EV brands are combining scale, software, and speed to reshape the market.

Leapmotor A10 looks like an early breakout hit

Leapmotor may have found one of 2026’s first true mass-market breakouts. According to D1EV, the brand saw a weekend order surge immediately after the A10 launch, with more than 9,000 firm orders recorded over two days alone:

• March 28: 4,394 orders
• March 29: 4,692 orders
• Two-day total: over 9,000 orders

Leapmotor CEO Zhu Jiangming publicly confirmed that the A10 has “locked in blockbuster status.” More notably, frontline dealer intelligence shared in the report suggests that total 72-hour orders may have reached roughly 19,000 to 21,000 units.

That estimate is based on a simple but telling retail math exercise:

• Leapmotor sales and service stores nationwide: 1,068
• City coverage: 295 cities
• Incremental orders per store in the first 72 hours: 18-20 units

If accurate, that would make the A10 one of the strongest recent launches in China’s affordable EV market.

Why the A10 is resonating

The A10’s early success appears to be driven by a familiar Chinese EV formula: sharp pricing, high perceived value, and the right feature mix for younger urban buyers.

D1EV reports that showroom traffic jumped 300% versus prior levels, with the A10 accounting for 80% of in-store interest. The car’s actual launch price reportedly came in about RMB 4,000 below what both customers and dealers had expected, triggering an immediate spike in same-day orders.

Buyer profile points to a new mainstream EV customer

The strongest demand came from buyers aged 20-35, with women accounting for 60% overall. In tier-1 and tier-2 cities, female buyers reportedly represented as much as 80% of interest, while in lower-tier cities, male buyers made up around 70%.

Typical customer groups included:

• Young couples
• Small urban families
• Buyers seeking a stylish daily commuter
• Customers prioritizing design and value-rich specifications

This matters because it shows how China’s entry EV market is becoming more emotionally driven. Design, color, digital features, and convenience are now just as important as basic affordability.

The lidar variant is the surprise star

One of the most revealing details from the launch is trim mix. Buyers are not just flocking to the cheapest version.

The 505 Lidar Edition, priced at RMB 86,800, accounted for 55% of orders. That is significant. It suggests Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to stretch their budget for better driver-assistance hardware and longer range, especially when the price step-up is relatively modest.

According to the report, many buyers saw the roughly RMB 7,000 upgrade as worthwhile. Test drives also appear to have shifted demand upward, with customers switching into the lidar-equipped trim after trying it.

Competitive set: Geely and BYD are in the crosshairs

The A10’s comparison shopping was highly concentrated:

• 40% of customers cross-shopped the Geely Xingyuan
• 40% compared it with the BYD Yuan UP

That tells us exactly where Leapmotor is aiming. The A10 is not trying to create a new category; it is attacking the heart of China’s high-volume compact EV market, where BYD and Geely have built formidable positions.

The main consumer concerns were also practical rather than aspirational:

• Delivery time
• Feature-to-price ratio
• Brand scale and credibility

With waiting times reportedly already extending to 10 weeks, the next challenge for Leapmotor will be manufacturing discipline and sustained delivery execution.

IM Motors LS8 targets the premium family EREV segment

If the A10 represents the volume end of China’s EV market, IM Motors’ new LS8 shows where the premium family segment is heading. Pre-sales for the LS8 opened on March 26, positioned as a flagship large extended-range SUV for the RMB 250,000-350,000 bracket.

This is one of the market’s hottest battlegrounds. According to the source, China’s mid-to-large extended-range SUV segment exceeded 300,000 units in 2025 and could approach 400,000 units in 2026.

IM Motors enters that race with momentum:

• 2025 annual sales: 81,017 units
• Brand record high
• Product growth driven by LS6 and LS9

The LS8 is effectively a technology transfer vehicle, bringing flagship LS9 hardware and software into a more accessible segment.

IM LS8 specs: big battery, fast charging, high compute

On paper, the LS8 is one of the most technically ambitious EREV launches in its class.

Key specifications

Those numbers place the LS8 among the more aggressive new-generation Chinese EREVs. The 430 km CLTC pure-electric range is especially notable for an extended-range SUV, as many rivals still offer much shorter battery-only capability.

The use of a 65.9 kWh semi-solid-state battery supplied by SAIC-CATL also stands out. While solid-state batteries remain years away from meaningful market share, semi-solid-state packs are increasingly becoming a bridge technology for premium Chinese EVs seeking better energy density and stronger branding.

Chassis and AD tech are central to the LS8 pitch

Unlike some family SUVs that focus almost entirely on cabin luxury, IM Motors is pushing the LS8 as both a comfort product and a dynamic technology showcase.

Notable chassis and comfort features

• Four-wheel steering with up to 24 degrees of bidirectional rear steering
• Closed air suspension
• Electronically controlled damping
• Minimum turning radius of 4.85 meters
• Redundant steer-by-wire-related safety architecture

For a large SUV, a 4.85-meter turning radius is a meaningful usability advantage in dense Chinese cities, where parking garages, residential compounds, and tight urban streets make maneuverability a real selling point.

On the software side, the LS8 comes with IM AD, including:

• 520-line lidar as standard
• 9 HD cameras
• Nvidia DRIVE Thor computing platform
• City NCA
• Highway NCA
• Cross-floor memory parking

The company also claims high-speed AEB functionality remains effective in difficult conditions such as snow and nighttime driving, with stable stopping at 100 km/h. As always, these claims will need real-world validation, but they reflect how Chinese automakers are now marketing active safety as a core premium differentiator.

Smart cabins are becoming AI products, not just infotainment systems

The LS8 also highlights another major Chinese EV trend: the cockpit is evolving into an AI-first interface.

Its interior tech stack includes:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 cockpit chip
• 27.1-inch central display
• 15.6-inch passenger entertainment screen
• IM AIOS smart cockpit system
• Multi-screen interaction
• Full-scenario voice control
• Facial recognition
• Qwen large language model integration

This is where China’s EV race is moving faster than many overseas markets. Automakers are no longer treating the cabin as a set of apps wrapped around a touchscreen. Instead, they are integrating large AI models directly into the in-car experience for contextual assistance, proactive services, and more natural voice interaction.

That trend connects neatly with Alibaba’s launch of the new multimodal Qwen3.5-Omni model, which can process text, images, audio, and video, supports 113 languages, and offers up to 256K context. While Qwen3.5-Omni is not an automotive product by itself, the direction of travel is obvious: Chinese tech and car companies are converging around multimodal in-vehicle AI.

A wider industry picture: profitable scale, AI chips, and Robotaxi realism

The March 30 news flow also offered a broader snapshot of where China’s EV industry is heading.

Seres shows scale can turn into profits

Seres reported strong 2025 financial results:

• Revenue: RMB 164.888 billion, up 13.63%
• Net profit attributable to shareholders: RMB 5.957 billion, up 0.18%
• New-energy vehicle gross margin: 28.8%
• Operating cash flow: RMB 28.91 billion
• Total vehicle sales: 516,900
• NEV sales: 472,269, up 10.63%
• Aito deliveries: over 420,000
• Aito M9 deliveries: over 110,000

These are important numbers because they reinforce a major structural shift in China’s EV market: scale players with strong product-market fit are beginning to convert volume into durable margins.

Li Auto pushes deeper into self-developed silicon

Li Auto CEO Li Xiang also revealed that the company’s Mach 100 chip research team had a paper accepted into the 2026 ISCA Industry Track, a prestigious recognition in computer architecture.

According to the report, the Mach 100 uses a dataflow architecture optimized for AI-native workloads rather than a conventional GPGPU approach. That matters because Chinese automakers are increasingly trying to control their own computing stack, from vehicle operating systems to smart driving silicon.

In practice, this could become a key competitive lever as advanced driver assistance and in-car AI become more compute-intensive.

Robotaxi expectations are being pulled back to reality

Another notable point came from QCraft CEO Yu Qian, who argued that Tesla is unlikely to achieve a truly driverless, fully formed Robotaxi product this year. He contrasted Tesla’s current state with Waymo’s more mature operational approach, noting that large-scale L4 deployment is not only about driving capability but also about the full service system around it.

That perspective is especially relevant in China, where urban traffic complexity is high and where local players such as Changan are now receiving L4 Robotaxi test permits. The takeaway is clear: autonomous driving progress is real, but commercialization timelines remain uneven and operationally difficult.

Why This Matters

Several themes connect these stories.

First, China’s EV market remains brutally competitive, but demand is still there for the right product. Leapmotor’s A10 proves that sub-RMB 100,000 EVs can still generate blockbuster order momentum if pricing and trim strategy are right.

Second, the premium family SUV market is becoming a technology arms race. IM Motors’ LS8 is not just selling space and comfort; it is selling 800V charging, semi-solid-state batteries, rear-wheel steering, lidar, Nvidia compute, and an AI cockpit in one package.

Third, the industry is moving beyond the old EV checklist of range, battery, and acceleration. Today’s real differentiators are:

• Compute power
• Software maturity
• Assisted driving capability
• AI integration
• manufacturing scale
• retail execution

Finally, regulatory pressure against “involution-style” competition in sectors including new-energy vehicles suggests Beijing is increasingly aware of the downsides of destructive price wars. That could eventually favor stronger, more disciplined automakers over weaker players chasing unsustainable volume.

Global Implications

For international observers, these developments underline why Chinese EV brands are becoming harder to ignore.

Leapmotor shows how quickly a domestic brand can create mass-market traction with aggressive value positioning. IM Motors shows that Chinese brands are equally capable of pushing the premium envelope with advanced architectures and sophisticated software-hardware integration.

This combination is strategically important. It means China is no longer just exporting low-cost EVs; it is building capability across the full market stack:

• Affordable urban EVs
• premium EREVs and SUVs
• AI-powered cockpits
• high-performance assisted driving systems
• self-developed chips and software platforms

As these technologies mature, the same formulas now winning in China are likely to shape export products in Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

What to watch next

In the near term, the biggest questions are execution-related.

For Leapmotor:

• Can A10 deliveries ramp without quality or logistics problems?
• Will the 10-week wait extend further?
• Can it sustain momentum against BYD and Geely after the launch spike?

For IM Motors:

• Will the LS8’s final pricing be aggressive enough to convert attention into volume?
• Can its premium tech package stand out in an increasingly crowded EREV field?
• How much will buyers value semi-solid-state batteries and four-wheel steering in real purchase decisions?

For the wider market:

• Will AI cockpit integration become a true buying factor or remain mainly a marketing differentiator?
• How quickly will self-developed chips move from branding story to measurable user benefit?
• Can regulators slow destructive competition without hurting consumer demand?

One thing is already clear: China’s EV industry is entering a more mature phase, but not a calmer one. The pace of launches, hardware upgrades, and software competition is still accelerating—and brands that can combine price discipline with genuine technological depth are likely to set the tone for the next chapter.