Leapmotor 'Unleashed': The Hidden Engine Driving the Rise from the Periphery of New Forces to Fourth Globally

Xinhua AUTO: In 2026, the Chinese new energy vehicle market is undergoing an unprecedented restructuring. As the industry shifts from widespread incremental expansion to fierce stock competition, an August sales report not only announces a complete reshuffle of the ranking among new car manufacturers, but also demonstrates the strong momentum of Chinese new energy automakers on the global track.

Leapmotor delivered 103,129 vehicles globally, with a year-on-year increase of 80.7%, solidly standing at the 100,000 monthly sales mark for the second consecutive month, unhesitatingly retaining the sales champion among new forces. What is more shocking is the gap of over 60,000 vehicles opened between it and the second-place Harmony Intelligence (42,101 vehicles) — Leapmotor's single monthly sales exceeded the sum of the second to fourth places. According to the comparable terminal registration data for the first 5 months of this year, Leapmotor ranks fourth globally among new energy passenger car brands, behind BYD, Tesla, and Geely, ranking third among Chinese new energy passenger car brands.

From 879 units sold per month in 2019 to 100,000 units today, Leapmotor took six years. This is not luck, but a manufacturing logic that has been repeatedly verified.

 

Sales Gap Leading, New Force Structure Faces Reshaping

 

First, let's look at how drastic the tier differentiation is in August's chess game.

Above Leapmotor, no one; below Leapmotor, crowded. Harmony Intelligence ranks second with 42,101 units, while Xpeng, Li Auto, Zeekr, and Nio are densely packed in the 35,000 to 40,000 unit range — the gap between them is less than 4,000 units. A production fluctuation in a key model or the launch of a new car is enough to rewrite monthly rankings. This is a typical "close-quarters combat" zone.

And Leapmotor has completely left this quagmire, pushing the new force competition threshold directly to the 100,000 units monthly scale.

Supporting this gap is the A, B, C, D four major product series covering the entire price band from 60,000 to 300,000 yuan. A series sold nearly 30,000 units in October, taking the sales champion of Chinese brand SUVs, and is the absolute main force in the entry market; B series monthly sales broke through 20,000 units, catering to the mid-range needs of young families; C series is a global model, C10 monthly sales continued to break 10,000, with the series global cumulative sales exceeding 850,000 units, among which C11 cumulative sales reached about 350,000 since its launch in 2021; the flagship sequence also achieved significant breakthroughs — D19 delivered 10,043 units in July, retaining the sales champion of large SUVs within 400,000 yuan for three consecutive months, the first MPV D99 first batch order average price broke through 300,000 yuan.

Four vehicles selling in volume simultaneously, without relying on a single hit, anti-risk ability is far stronger than opponents who "support the whole situation with one car". This is the product-end foundation for Leapmotor to stand out in the battlefield.

Stretching the time axis is more astonishing: 596,600 units delivered in full year 2025, up 103.1% year-on-year; 560,900 units reached in the first 8 months of 2026, up about 70% year-on-year; as of the end of July, Leapmotor's global cumulative delivery broke through 1.6 million units.

 

Jumping to Fourth Globally, Going Overseas Builds Second Growth Curve

 

If it's only price-performance ratio in the domestic market, Leapmotor can at most be a "China Sales Champion". What truly pushes it to fourth globally is the steep growth curve overseas.

In the first half of 2026, Leapmotor exported 96,294 units, a violent increase of 372.6% year-on-year — this number has already exceeded its total export volume for all of 2025, accounting for 27% of total sales in the first half. Equivalent to about one out of every four Leapmotor sold is sent overseas. Cumulative exports in January to July reached 113,863 units, the annual target has been adjusted from 100,000 to 150,000 units to 200,000 units, 2027 challenges 350,000 to 400,000 units.

The key lies in path selection: ride the boat to go out to sea, instead of building boats themselves.

In 2023, Stellantis obtained about 20% equity of Leapmotor for about 1.5 billion euros; in 2024, the two parties established a joint company "Leapmotor International" (Stellantis holding 51%, Leapmotor 49%), responsible for sales and production outside Greater China. Leapmotor's sales outlets are directly embedded into the dealer system of brands under Stellantis, channel costs are close to zero.

What does this mean? As of the end of June, Leapmotor International has entered more than 45 international markets, establishing more than 1,000 sales and after-sales outlets, among which Europe exceeds 900 — the same channel volume level, BYD spent nearly three years, Leapmotor only used one and a half years.

The battle results are very real: Italy pure electric registration 23,000 units in the first half, market share over 25%, ranking first in local pure electric sales for consecutive periods; June became the Chinese brand with the highest new pure electric vehicle registration volume in the German market; ranked third in Chinese brand pure electric retail in the UK. Revenue from markets outside mainland China in the first half reached 9.099 billion yuan, accounting for about 23.9% of total revenue, among which Europe contributed 8.875 billion yuan.

Another deeper step is local production: Malaysia Kedah factory C10 has completed mass production, Spain Zaragoza factory B10 starts production in the third quarter, Brazil Goiania factory is selected as the South American assembly base (mass production in the second half of 2027). This is both a passive choice to cope with EU tariff barriers, and an active layout rooted in the overseas market — CFO Li Tengfei said very clearly: "The improvement of local net profit is not in the present, but in the near future."

 

The Trump Card: Turn "Cost Structure" into a Moat

 

The majority of people's impression of Leapmotor stays at "cheap". But cheap is just the result, the real reason is that it re-disassembled the whole vehicle cost structure.

Leapmotor insists on "Full Domain R&D + Deep Self-Manufacturing": grasping more than 65% of the core components of the whole vehicle BOM cost, building 18 parts factories, whole vehicle architecture generalization rate exceeds 88% — more than a dozen cars only used 3 types of battery cells, 2 intelligent driving solutions.

The "Super Five-Electric Factory" in Huzhou, Zhejiang is the entity of this logic: total construction area about 500,000 square meters, concentrating Battery, Drive, Domain Control, Headlights, Electronic Power five key components in one park, is the largest area and highest integration pure core component R&D and self-manufacturing cluster in the global new energy field.

Traditional automobile industry has evolved over decades, forming a pyramid supplier system — whole vehicle factories mainly responsible for design and assembly, about 60% to 80% of the total vehicle cost comes from outsourcing and purchasing, suppliers on average take about 15% gross margin. Leapmotor internalized these links, whole vehicle cost is about 10% lower than pure purchasing schemes.

Specific to details, every cent has an origin:

Drive: Stator manufacturing, rotor manufacturing, controller manufacturing and drive assembly four processes concentrated in one factory, full process "zero transfer", saving 3 times packaging, 3 times cross-factory transport and 3 times entry and exit, single set manufacturing cost saves about 50 yuan — calculated at annual production of 1 million sets, one year is 50 million yuan. It is precisely because of this that Leapmotor dares to promise lifetime warranty for electric drive.

Domain Control: A circuit board the size of A4 paper integrates about 8,000 electronic components, any one sticking crooked 10 microns may affect driving safety. Leapmotor moved the chip manufacturing environment into the car factory, ultra-high speed precision pick and place accuracy reaches ±15 microns, better than industry mainstream ±25—30 microns, nitrogen vacuum reflow soldering yield exceeds 99.995%.

Battery: Follow "self-developed battery pack + purchased cells" route, annual production capacity over 380,000 sets production line has been put into production, module line automation rate as high as 90%, from cell to CTC battery pack through 56 processes, 100% full inspection and data traceability.

This 10% cost advantage is finally converted into pricing power. Zhu Jiangming said this very plainly: "We do not pursue high gross margin, this is not a result, but a choice." He set the target gross margin at 15%, "among which 10% is saved by self-research and self-manufacturing, users actually only pay 5%."

He compared Uniqlo to Zegna — Zegna gross margin is high, but must be placed in the best malls in top tier cities, operating costs high, sales low; Uniqlo gross margin low but turnover fast, scale large. "Zegna and Uniqlo who makes money? Answer is Uniqlo."

This is not "losing money to make noise", but by full domain self-research to reassign the money originally to be earned by others on the supply chain to users and itself.

 

Breaking Profit Curse, but Only Earn 589 Yuan Per Car

 

In the automobile industry, enterprises with 100,000 monthly sales often face huge profit tests. Leapmotor broke the new forces "sell more, lose more" curse.

In the first half of 2026, Leapmotor achieved operating revenue 38.11 billion yuan, up 57.2% year-on-year, creating a historical high for the same period; net profit 210 million yuan, up about 600%, maintaining profitability for three consecutive half-years. Second quarter gross margin increased 3.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 12.6%, showing scale effect is being released.

Expense end data can illustrate the problem better: first half sales expense increased 41.1%, management expense increased 27.8%, R&D expense increased 22.8%, three expense growth rates were all lower than revenue 57.2% growth — R&D, production line depreciation, management these fixed costs were diluted by the rapidly expanded production and sales volume, full domain self-research heavy investment started entering return cycle.

But taking the financial report apart, under the halo there are three cracks.

First, profit making ability is far worse than selling cars ability. Calculating by net profit divided by sales, first half car net profit only about 589 yuan. More noteworthy structure: first half other revenue reached 1.08 billion yuan, financial income net 131 million yuan, while operating profit only 128 million yuan — deducting other revenue, main business operating level actually in loss state.

Gross margin decreased from 14.1% of the same period last year to 11.7%, company attributed to raw material cost increase and whole vehicle product combination changes (low price A series volume release). Management team has lowered annual net profit target from 5 billion yuan to 3 billion yuan, Li Tengfei said frankly, even if second half gross margin repair, only "basically back to last year same period level", "this cannot be called a particularly excellent performance".

Second, quality and after-sales arrears are catching up. 2025 Leapmotor complaint index grew 37% year-on-year, ranked third in new forces complaint list, C11, C10, C16 three cars accounted for 64% of total complaints. Chezhiwang data shows, 2026 C11, B10, C16 manufacturer reply rate respectively 72%, 81.7%, 86.9%, while same list many brands reached 100%; C11 and C16 user satisfaction only 2.0 points and 1.9 points.

100,000 monthly sales is a sales milestone, also after-sales system pressure test. Repair workstations, parts reserve and service response, run faster than orders? This bill, Leapmotor must make up as soon as possible.

Third, overseas structural dependence. Europe one place accounted for most of Leapmotor overseas volume, market highly single. While DAT data shows, April 2026 Chinese brand pure electric and plug-in hybrid models in Germany three-year second-hand car residual value only original price 47%, down 14 percentage points from 61% at beginning of 2024 — Chinese brand depreciation speed is twice industry average. In European market with loan car purchase, long-term lease, second-hand exchange mainly, residual value every drop is real cost.

In addition, carbon points are an undeniable "policy dividend": 2025 Leapmotor transferred EU carbon points to Stellantis, annual revenue reached 1.11 billion yuan, equivalent to Leapmotor annual profit two times; 2026 transaction amount limit has been raised to 2.8 billion yuan. This is cooperation dividend, not sustainable profit — once cooperation relationship changes, this profit source can be cut off at any time.

 

Next Challenge: From "Price-Performance" to "Technology Accessibility"

 

Facing new challenges in industry transformation period — extended range dividend gradually fading, low price product proportion expanding, raw material cost rising, overseas expansion high investment, Leapmotor is not satisfied with "price-performance" single label.

September 16, Leapmotor will hold 2026 annual technology conference in Huzhou, Zhejiang, release official preview as "entire industry first tier level" intelligent assisted driving world model, and new battery, new motor results in three electric field.

Leapmotor has always been a "late arrival" in intelligence. Zhu Jiangming judgment is: route not stable do not rashly heavy investment — from high precision map to map-less, to embodied model, large model, direction changed several times, Leapmotor choose to wait for direction clear, 2025 second half just increased investment.

It bets on self-developed VLA world model route: multi-modal input, not just relying on text, also through vision, sound and other perception understand world; code does not have if-else rules, but also different from fully unexplainable end-to-end "black box".

Its product goal is not to do strongest intelligent driving, but to make sufficient intelligent driving cheapest — put four or five ten thousand luxury car world model solution, down to 100,000 yuan entry model. This road needs to run smoothly, rely on cumulative 1.6 million delivery accumulated data loop.

Further back, Leapmotor has confirmed planning positioning 300,000 yuan above second brand, plan 2027 launch, adopt independent sales channel, role similar to Lexus to Toyota, Denza to BYD; brand warm-up expected 2026 year end launch. Zhu Jiangming long term goal is 10 years inside annual sales 4 million units.

 

Conclusion: Scale is Ticket, Not Endgame

 

Leapmotor story, essentially is a manufacturing logic defeating internet narrative sample. In a financing scale, founder halo dominant discourse industry, Leapmotor chose the most stupid path: make parts themselves, build factory themselves, press gross margin to lowest, use scale exchange survival. Its success proves one thing: in fully competitive manufacturing, cost structure difference is more reliable than brand premium.

But must also see clearly, global fourth this position, currently is sat on by "sales", not yet by "profit" or "brand" sit stable. 589 yuan car profit, run lose peer after-sales satisfaction, highly concentrated overseas market, not yet verified intelligent driving ability — these four questions, any one do wrong, will let "Unleashed" narrative suddenly stop.

True watershed may be in September 16, when saved costs start to convert into visible technology, not just visible configuration, Leapmotor just from "Price-Performance King" to "Technical Player". At that time, global fourth is not finish line, but new starting line.