Future of petrol-electric hybrids in South Africa

THE Leapmotor C10 REEV midsize SUV to be launched in South Africa this year is a Battery Electric Motor (BEV) but technically it’s also not.

- WILLEM VAN DE PUTTE [e-mail]

We'll get to why but if you haven’t heard of Leapmotor before, it’s a Chinese manufacturer that Stellantis has a 20% stake in and owns 51% of Leapmotor International, a joint venture with Leapmotor.

As a reminder, in South Africa Stellantis has Citroen, Fiat, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Opel, Peugeot, Abarth and soon Leapmotor under its umbrella.

What is REEV?

REEV stands for Range Extender Electric Vehicle which is essentially a hybrid vehicle that combines BEV technology with an internal combustion engine (ICE).

It's not a hybrid vehicle as we've come to know it, like the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid that uses a traditional hybrid model.

It has a 1.5-litre SOkW four cylinder petrol unit under the bonnet with the sole purpose of acting as a generator when the battery charge gets to a certain percentage. It doesn’t drive the wheels directly but generates electricity to recharge the 28.4kWh battery that powers a 158kW electric motor with 320Nm of torque on the rear axle.

The battery provides a claimed 145km of electric range (WLTP).

This way you should, according to Leapmotor, get a range of well over 900 kilometres.

It’s also a plug-in hybrid that with a DC 65kW charger takes 28 minutes to get from 30% to 80% and 4.5 hours to full with 6.6kW AC charging.

Modes

The C10 REEV comes with four driving modes EV+, EV, Fuel Mode and Power+.

In EV+ Mode the electric motor is prioritised and the range extender (engine) only kicks in when the State of Charge (SoC) reaches below 9%.

In EV Mode the electric motor is prioritised with the range extender starting to work intelligently (according to speed/SoC/power demand) when the SoC is below 25%.

In Fuel Mode the engine runs constantly and is used to maximise driving range.

In Power+ the range extender will immediately start working to improve power output and provide maximum performance.