Did you know Leapmotor, a name that’s been quietly making waves, just opened a major European design center? This isn’t just another factory or sales office. This is Leapmotor planting its flag in Munich, Germany, right in the backyard of some of the biggest names in the auto world. It signals a serious shift from just shipping cars *out* of China to designing them *for* the world, right here in Europe.
This move comes on the back of some seriously impressive numbers. For 2025, Leapmotor pulled in RMB 64.73 billion in revenue, a whopping 101.3% jump year-over-year. They delivered 596,555 vehicles, marking the second year in a row they’ve doubled their sales. But the real headline? They finally turned a profit, posting RMB 540 million. That makes them only the second Chinese EV startup, after Li Auto, to hit annual profitability. With nearly RMB 38 billion in the bank, they’ve got the cash to back up this ambitious global design strategy.
Leapmotor has been a quiet export king among the newer Chinese EV players. In 2025, they exported over 67,000 units, and by February 2026, they’d already cleared the 100,000 export mark. Italy, in particular, has been a massive success story. Dataforce reports that in February 2026, Leapmotor saw over 5,000 registrations there, a mind-boggling 2,196% increase year-on-year. They’re currently dominating the Italian EV market, snagging nearly 40% of all BEV sales and over half of the retail passenger EV segment.
Here’s the catch though: most of those Italian sales are the T03, their small, budget-friendly city car. That’s great for volume, but it risks pigeonholing Leapmotor as just another cheap EV brand. To command premium prices and build a lasting global presence, they need to prove they can design desirable cars for diverse markets. That’s exactly what this Munich hub is for.
During the ribbon-cutting, Leapmotor showed off the B03X (known as the A10 in China), a global SUV designed to hit nearly 40 countries. This is where they’ll test their new design language, hoping to shed the budget image and compete on style and substance. Think of it as a crucial step towards building something more akin to
