2026 Leapmotor B05 Priced for Australia: Rear-Drive Electric Hatch From $35,990 Driveaway, Up to 482km WLTP

Image credit: Leapmotor Australia

Leapmotor has slipped a small rear-drive electric hatch into a segment that has been Chinese-brand territory for a while now, and the pricing is where it gets interesting. The B05 starts at $35,990 driveaway for the Style, and the longer-range Design Long Range lands at $38,990 driveaway under a launch offer that runs to 30 September 2026. If you were about to sign on an MG 4 or hold out for a BYD Dolphin bigger-battery variant, there is a new name on the shortlist. Cars land in dealerships from late August.

The interesting part is what Leapmotor has picked to compete on. This is not a stripped-out cheap car chasing the sub-$30k bracket. It sits a step above, with a rear-wheel-drive layout, a fair whack of standard equipment and enough battery in the flagship for a genuine week of city driving. Below is the pricing, the numbers that matter, and how it stacks up against the electric hatches already in our directory.

Pricing

Leapmotor Australia has landed the B05 on a driveaway launch price. The Design Long Range gets a $1,000 saving under a national promo tied to the Lightning Yellow launch colour, for orders placed and delivered between 1 July and 30 September 2026. After the promo window the Design Long Range steps up to $39,990 driveaway. Style pricing stays put at $35,990 driveaway on the standard palette.

Note the driveaway framing. Leapmotor Australia is quoting the full number a buyer signs for including on-road costs, not a before-on-roads sticker. When you compare the B05 to a car quoted before on-road costs (say a Tesla Model 3 RWD), remember to add a few thousand to the rival to bring them onto the same axis.

One motor, two batteries

Both B05 variants share the same drivetrain. A single electric motor sitting over the rear axle, 160kW of peak power and 240Nm of torque, feeding the rear wheels only. Leapmotor rates the 0 to 100km/h sprint at 6.7 seconds on the Design Long Range, which is quicker than most people will ever ask a small hatch to be. The Style shaves a little pace to account for the smaller battery but stays in the same ballpark.

Battery chemistry is lithium iron phosphate (LFP) on both grades. The Style runs a 56.2kWh pack good for a claimed 401km WLTP, and the Design Long Range gets a bigger 67.1kWh pack rated at 482km WLTP. LFP is heavier per kWh than nickel-based chemistries but tolerates full charges better and lasts longer, which is why the Chinese small-car brigade keeps picking it.

Two things stand out on that table. First, the wheelbase. 2,735mm is longer than a Toyota Corolla and about the same as an MG 4, so rear-seat legroom should be fine for the segment. Second, the DC charging number. 174kW is genuinely fast for a car in this bracket, faster than a Model 3 RWD, and it drops the 30 to 80 per cent stop under 20 minutes on a suitable charger. Whether Australian public infrastructure can hand a B05 its full 174kW is a separate conversation, but the car is willing.

Inside the cabin

Both grades run the same core screen setup, a 14.6-inch central touchscreen mounted floating from the dash and an 8.8-inch digital instrument cluster in front of the driver. The operating system is Leapmotor's LEAP OS 4.0 Plus, the newer version already rolling out on the C10 and B10, with over-the-air update support. Climate control is fully automatic and runs a heat pump, which is quietly a big deal for winter range because it draws less battery to keep the cabin warm than the electric-resistance heaters some cheaper EVs still use.

Style versus Design Long Range breaks along the usual axis, wheel size, upholstery finish, and a few convenience bits like heated seats and additional trim brightwork on the Design LR. The Style still gets the full touchscreen, dual-zone climate, wireless phone connectivity, and the same seven-airbag structure.

Safety

The B05 is not yet ANCAP rated. Euro NCAP has already tested the closely related B10 to five stars, so the B05 is expected to land in the same ballpark once ANCAP publishes a result, but until that happens we call it what it is. Leapmotor fits seven airbags including a front-centre airbag, and quotes 21 driver-assist functions driven off 14 sensors and cameras. Standard kit includes autonomous emergency braking, lane keeping, adaptive cruise, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic warning and a 360-degree camera.

How it lines up in the CarSorted directory

We ran the B05 up against the rear-drive and front-drive electric hatches already listed on CarSorted at similar money. The comparison is a bit sideways because Leapmotor is quoting driveaway pricing and Tesla is still quoting before on-road costs, so we normalised to before-on-roads where we could. Numbers below come from the CarSorted directory pages linked in each row.

Three patterns to pull out of the numbers. First, the B05 Style beats the Essence-grade MG 4 on driveaway price by $4,000 without giving up much on range. Second, the Design Long Range at $38,990 driveaway is a full $15,910 under the Model 3 RWD before on-road costs, which turns into an even bigger gap once the Tesla gets stamp duty and rego added. Third, the BYD Dolphin is still the value benchmark below $30k, but the B05 is aiming a rung higher on power, battery and body size.

Warranty and service

Leapmotor covers the B05 with a six-year, 150,000km vehicle warranty and an eight-year, 160,000km high-voltage battery warranty. Roadside assistance and capped-price servicing both stretch to eight years, which is well ahead of anything the Japanese brands offer at this money. For a fuller cross-check on how the big Chinese brands stack up on cover length, see our warranty comparison.

Where the B05 sits for Leapmotor

This is the third Leapmotor for Australia after the C10 medium SUV and the B10 small SUV. The C10 hit shelves late last year, the B10 launched with both pure EV and range-extended EV drivetrains earlier this year, and the B05 is the first hatchback in the family. All three cars are distributed by Stellantis Australia, so if the servicing plan or spare-parts pipeline is a concern, keep in mind that Leapmotor sits inside the same national dealer footprint as Peugeot, Citroen and Jeep.

The CarSorted angle

The most interesting number in the release is 174kW DC. Pull up any electric hatch on CarSorted in this price bracket and the peak DC figure is normally between 60kW and 88kW. A Design Long Range on a busy public 175kW charger can, in theory, add roughly 240km of range in the time it takes to drink a bad servo coffee. That is a real difference for buyers who occasionally do a Sydney to Canberra or a Melbourne to Bendigo, where the previous cheap-EV limitation was never total range but the wait time at a charger.

Cross-shopping on our Tesla Model 3 vs BYD Dolphin vs MG 4 comparison, three-year running costs (charging at home overnight plus rego and CTP averaged across NSW, Vic and Qld) land within a $600 spread across the three cars. The B05 Design Long Range slots directly into that group at $38,990 driveaway with a bigger LFP pack than the Model 3 RWD, a longer factory battery warranty than the MG 4 and a much faster DC charge speed than either. If your usage profile is 80 per cent city, 20 per cent occasional highway, the B05 is the one that stops looking compromised on the road-trip day.

What this means for buyers

If you were already cross-shopping the MG 4 Essence 64 at $39,990 driveaway and the BYD Dolphin Premium, the B05 Design Long Range slides in cheaper than the MG 4 while offering 30km more WLTP range and roughly double the peak DC charge speed. It is not the cheapest new EV you can buy, that title still belongs to the Dolphin Essential, but it looks like the best value on a dollar-per-usable-kWh basis in the sub-$40k driveaway bracket.

If your driving is 100 per cent metro and you never touch a highway on the weekend, a Dolphin Essential at $29,990 will still save you about $9,000 in metal cost and never punish you for the smaller battery. If you regularly cover 150 to 200km in a day, or you want the option to head out of the city for a long weekend without planning the trip around chargers, the B05 Design Long Range is where the sums start to make sense.

The last thing to check is the ANCAP status. It is not yet rated. Some buyers, particularly families using the car for the school run, may want to wait for the local safety score to publish before locking a deposit. The B10 is a genuine five-star Euro NCAP car and the B05 rides on the same underpinnings, so we would expect the ANCAP result to be strong, but we do not assert a rating until one is on the board.

Cross-shop the B05 against the rest of the sub-$40k electric field on the CarSorted directory, or run a direct side-by-side on our Model 3 vs Dolphin vs MG 4 comparison page and add the B05 to the shortlist mentally until we get it into the database once cars land.