Leapmotor delivers a record 310,052 cars in the third quarter

The headline numbers are simple. Leapmotor delivered 105,656 vehicles in September, up 2.45% on August's 103,129. That's the third month in a row above 100,000, after 101,267 in July.

The quarter came to 310,052 vehicles. That's 78.34% more than the third quarter of 2025, and 25.87% more than the second quarter of this year, Stellantis said. Leapmotor called it a record-breaking quarter, and the numbers back that up. Its previous best was 246,332 in the second quarter, according to figures compiled by CnEVPost.

Over the first nine months, Leapmotor delivered 666,539 vehicles, up 68.52%. That's already more than the 596,555 it delivered in all of 2025.

To give you a sense of scale, Leapmotor was delivering around 12,000 cars a month at the start of 2024. In September it delivered more than eight times that.

Stellantis called Leapmotor the leading Chinese new energy vehicle start-up. It said the result put Leapmotor among the top three Chinese new energy vehicle brands and the top four worldwide. Those rankings are the company's own claims.

Among China's newer electric carmakers, though, the September gap is plain to see. In CnEVPost's round-up of September deliveries, Leapmotor's 105,656 was more than double the next start-up, Xpeng, at 41,256. Nio delivered 37,408 and Li Auto 31,817.

Exports pass Leapmotor's target early

More and more of those cars are leaving China. Leapmotor said it exported more than 27,000 vehicles in September, a monthly high, and more than 150,000 in the first nine months.

That means it's already hit its export target for 2026, the company said, according to the EV news site EV. Chief financial officer Li Tengfei said in August he expected exports to reach 200,000 this year, the site reported.

Before September, Leapmotor's monthly export high for this year was about 21,000 in June, CnEVPost said. It exported 18,255 in August.

Those exports go through Leapmotor International, its joint venture with Stellantis. Leapmotor said its European sales and service network now has more than 1,000 outlets. Stellantis said in September the brand had passed 1,000 European retailers across 36 countries, about two years after it launched in Europe.

Local production is on the way, too. Leapmotor is getting ready to build the B10 SUV at Stellantis's plant in Zaragoza, in Spain, according to EV.

The cars doing the work

Leapmotor's lineup has filled out fast, and it leans hard towards cheaper models.

Stellantis said combined production of the B01 sedan and the B10 SUV has passed 300,000 in just 18 months. No Leapmotor model family has got there faster. It's also the quickest Leapmotor has reached 60,000 overseas exports for a single model family.

The B10 is now sold in more than 40 countries and regions. Stellantis said it was the best-selling Chinese compact battery-electric SUV in Europe in the first half of 2026.

In China, the cheapest cars are carrying a lot of the volume. The A10 small SUV, launched in March from 65,800 yuan, or about A$14,000, was China's second best-selling car in August by insurance registrations, with 30,652 units, EV reported. The A05 sedan followed in August from 63,900 yuan, with lidar offered on versions under 100,000 yuan.

Further up the range, Leapmotor refreshed its C-series SUVs in June with an 800-volt platform, which allows faster charging. It launched its D19 flagship SUV in April from 219,800 yuan, and updated the B10 and B01 in July, EV reported. So Leapmotor has launched or refreshed most of its lineup this year.

Australians can already buy Leapmotor cars. The B10 and the larger C10 are on sale here through Stellantis, and the brand ran driveaway deals on both through September, CarExpert reported. CarExpert said a new B05 hatch has also arrived with launch pricing. Electric cars are having a big year here as well. In August, battery-electric cars outsold petrol for the first time.

The million-car target for 2026

Leapmotor has set itself a big goal for 2026: one million sales. Founder, chairman and chief executive Zhu Jiangming set the target in a letter to staff in December and backed it again in July.

"We can't have a Plan B," Zhu told Sina Finance in July.

Nine months in, Leapmotor is about two-thirds of the way there. To get to a million, it needs 333,461 more deliveries in the final quarter, or about 111,154 a month on average. That's about 5% above September's record, so the company has to keep growing right to the end of the year.

Growth has slowed, though. Month-on-month gains were 8.5% in July, 1.8% in August and 2.5% in September. Profit is still a work in progress. Leapmotor posted a first-half net profit of about 208 million yuan, by EV's count, its third profitable half-year in a row. CnEVPost put the figure slightly higher. In August Leapmotor cut its full-year profit target to about 3 billion yuan.

What's next

Leapmotor's next big public outing is the Paris Motor Show, where it'll show its D19 flagship SUV and A05 sedan. The show runs from 12 to 18 October.

Further out, the company said at its technology day in September that it'll add plug-in hybrids alongside its battery-electric and range-extended models. Its next vehicle architecture, LEAP 5.0, reaches its first cars in 2027. Zhu said a second brand will debut and start deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2027.

For now, the story is volume. Three months ago Leapmotor had never sold 100,000 cars in a month. It's now done it three times in a row, and it's already sold more cars this year than in all of last year.