Not another new Chinese brand?

Yes, another one. LEPAS is a new brand to almost everyone reading this, and it arrives with the sort of origin story that is becoming familiar: it belongs to Chery, the Chinese giant that already sells here as Omoda and Jaecoo, its name is a portmanteau of "leopard" and "passion", and its design language is called Leopard Aesthetics. If you have reached the point of glazing over whenever a new badge appears with a big touchscreen and a long warranty, that is a reasonable place to be.

Except the L6 EV is worth two minutes of your time, because the numbers are competitive rather than merely present. It is a 4,570 mm C-segment SUV, so almost exactly the length of a Skoda Enyaq, with a 65 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery and a single front motor making 217 PS. LEPAS claims 279 miles on the WLTP cycle, which for a car of this size and a battery of this size is a genuinely good figure rather than a flattering one.

The LFP battery matters more than the brochure lets on. LFP packs are happy being charged to 100% every night, which removes the daily faff of setting an 80% limit, and they tend to age better than the nickel-based alternatives. Plenty of makers use LFP at the cheap end of the range; using it in a 279 mile family SUV is a more interesting choice.

Now the thing they are not shouting about. The L6 EV charges at up to 120 kW, and LEPAS quotes 22 minutes for 30 to 80%. Almost every other manufacturer quotes 10 to 80%, which is a bigger and slower chunk of the battery, so that 22 minutes is not comparable with the figures you have in your head. A 120 kW peak is also merely adequate in 2026 when a Hyundai IONIQ 5 will take more than twice that. It will be fine for the school run and acceptable on a motorway stop, but it is not a strength.

The rest reads well. The boot holds 410 litres, rising to 1,334 with the seats down, and there is a further 99 litres under the floor, which is exactly where the charging cables should live. There is 3.3 kW vehicle-to-load on both trims, a panoramic sunroof and a 13.2-inch screen as standard, and a European chassis team has had a go at the suspension before it reaches British roads. Two trims: Essence, then Elevate for the heated and ventilated powered seats and the Sony stereo.

The warranty is the headline LEPAS clearly wants: seven years or 100,000 miles on the car, eight years or 100,000 miles on the battery. That is Kia territory, and for a brand nobody has heard of it is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on trust.

Which brings us to the one number missing from a press release that contains every other number: the price. Order books open in early Q4 2026, and until LEPAS says what it costs, none of the above tells you whether the L6 EV is a bargain or just another car. On current form, that will be the whole story.