China vs Japan： Luxury Minivans To Rival Rolls-Royce & Bentley!

This is the Leigh Auto Mega and it is a city car. Okay, it's also a very advanced bit of kit. So today we will be figuring out whether it really is one of the fastest charging EVs on the planet. Click, clunk, click, wait for it to all lock. Whether its latest generation AI is going to go all Skynet and destroy the human race. The problem is you have to keep your arm in the air for quite a long time. How it warps the space-time continuum with its interior space. And I'm also going to drive it around a lot, which was slightly more exciting than I had hoped. Oh, my lusty landlubbers. The pirate captain is back in town. And as a final thing, we'll be comparing it to the only thing in the UK that's even vaguely similar, the Lexus LM350h. But a city car? Well, yes, really. This is Leigh Auto's first go at a fully electric vehicle. Usually it does hybrids. So this it considers to be its urban transport solution for seven people. Although it is capable of so much more. To me, it looks a bit like a bullet train crossed with a Renault Espace or what a Honda Stream might look like from 2035. But it's inspired by Chinese minimalism and Bauhaus and was designed by a guy called Benjamin Baum, who also designed the Porsche 992 generation 911, which is interesting. But you can basically see the airflow. It's very blank at the front. It's got this full-width light bar, but there are very few sticky out bits to interrupt anything. And then as you come back, it's got this properly sci-fi swoopy shape. It looks really bold and clean. And then when you get to the back, it's just kind of chopped off in this cam tail to give you separation of airflow and manage a really good coefficient of drag. It's not designed to bully the air, more convince it that it's slimmer than it is. It's got a very useful coefficient of drag of 0.215. Now to put that into context, a slippery Tesla Model X SUV is 0.24 and even Porsche's own Taycan is 0.22. It's still got a big frontal area, though, which will increase drag. But a lack of drag attracting shut lines and a low CD is a performance enhancing drug when it comes to efficiency. Yes, the Mega has an excellent CATL 102.5 kWh battery, but it should be capable of about 350 to 400 miles of range on a charge, possibly 450 if you drive it like your feet have been recently burned. For something this big, that's excellent. And you know what? I absolutely love it. It's way more exciting and inventive than all those other electric SUVs that are just a normal SUV with electric drivetrain stuffed into them. This makes me smile every time I see it. Weird EVs for the win, I say. But the interesting thing is what's going on back here, because this car has more interesting features than Salma Hayek. Unfortunately, a lot of the instructions are in Mandarin and my Mandarin is nonexistent because I'm stupid, but I'm going to try and remember everything anyway. So we'll start with the seating. In a normal SUV, you tend to have a seating arrangement that goes 2, 3, 2. In a Chinese MPV, you have 2, 2, 3. So that's because Chinese families tend to be a little bit bigger and they stick together, which is lovely. So you'd have the parents of the children in the front seats. Then you'd have the grandparents in the nice seats in the middle and then the kids in the third row. All of the seats are heated. These first four are heated and cooled. They also all have various massaging functions. I think there's 17 different programs in all and they are quite nice. The heating in these seats doesn't just heat your back and your bum, but it heats the armrests, the footrests, the headrests. You're encapsulated in this little bubble of warmness. It's very relaxing. They also recline a very long way like proper business class seats and they have pillows and I think every car should have pillows. Then there's lots of interesting little things like every seat has wireless phone charging. You can have a plug down here, which is a full plug so you could plug in your laptop. The only thing I have noticed is these cup holders feel really cheap. Then there's this, which is a cooled and heated drawer. There's loads of storage as you might expect. Then in the roof is a 4K OLED screen, which you can match to your computer when you're doing stuff. Then you put your computer on the lovely fold-out trays. Now, the interesting thing about this is that there's no tray on the driver's seat because Lean Auto decided that they didn't want people bashing up and down on a tray that was disturbing the driver. Far better to be watching a movie. I cannot remember how to make this screen come down, so I'm just going to go and put it on on the screen here. If I do this, then we should get that. Then you can sit here and watch this. The interesting thing about this screen is it also has gesture control. The AI that controls the Li Mega can do things like look at where your hand position is and react to what you're telling it to do. If I wave my hand up here and say, Li Shantouche, look, can you see that dot there? I don't know what she's saying, but she's probably saying that I'm very clever. Basically, you move your hand and it acts like a cursor. Then when you want to press on something, you make a fist. I'm going to go into the kids mode. Then you can do lots of really weird things like do AI painting, which if your kids are like my kids, would get very dark very quickly. The problem is you have to keep your arm in the air for quite a long time. Then you can watch all sorts of things. You can watch lots of movies. Apparently, in China, rom-com seemed very popular. Then there are various modes for the seats. After that, there's royal mode, which makes everything sit back, so there's more space in the center section. There's bed mode. If you take the headrests off these seats, these fold down and create a double bed with the rear seat, although you still have these armrests, so there's no hangy-panky going to be happening. You're very singular in your seating position. Then there's a sunroof. There's plenty of cup holders. I also really forgot about this one. I really like nap mode. In China, because people work long hours, a lot of people tend to pop down at lunchtime and have a little nap in their car. When you put nap mode on in this, the front seat reclines all the way and it starts to play birdsong or very relaxing noises for you. Then after a timer has gone off, it'll sit you back up and wake you up. It's neat. I could do that at work. If you do need to carry a lot more cargo than you do people, you can fold all of the rear seats electrically like this. One of the really interesting things about the way that the AI has suffused through this entire vehicle is that what you can do instead of actually physically using the switches for the things like the windows and the sunroof and the heating, you can just point at things and tell them what you want them to do. In theory, you can point at that window or that window and just say, open the window, and it'll recognize the gesture and do the thing you want it to do. Unfortunately, it's still in Mandarin. Even though I can trigger the car, open this window. I think that's saying that it's not possible because I don't speak Mandarin. I did actually get the people who delivered this car to demonstrate all of these features for me, and they really did work. Although it could have been a massive setup, the chances of that are long, but not zero. The people up front aren't forgotten either, because it's quite luxury up here as well. I'll go through the basics first. It has quite a lot of storage, including a rather lovely condom for the steering wheel. I'm not sure what that's for. It's got heated and cooled cup holders, two for the back, two for the front. Very, very fast wireless charging. A big storage area down here, which you could probably use for pretty much anything. It's also got a mega sound system for music or movies, which is full Dolby Atmos with loads of speakers, but I can't switch it on. On the steering wheel is actually a little touch screen driver's information display. It gives you all the usual bits, like how much charge you've got left, percentages, all that kind of stuff, what gear you're in. Then you can flick it like this and find out some of your other information, date, time, temperature, all that. Then if you do the middle like that, you can change the height of the HUD, the head-up display, and also things like the suspension height for loading and the power mode. It's a really neat little thing. I've not seen that before, and it works really, really well. A load of all the haptic buttons, a couple of rotary controllers, but the bit that really shows you up is the fact that it's got basically two feet of screen in the dash. That side is all media for the passengers, and then this side is all about the car. You've got all the information you need, tyre pressures, how many kilowatt hours per 100 miles you're doing, whatever. Then as soon as you start playing with all of these buttons, you see that there's so much functionality, it gets kind of confusing, and it's all really, really quick. Everything you touch is really fast. You've got here, you've got modes for slippery conditions off-road. Then you've got the actual drive mode, so Eco, R Comfort, Comfort Normal, Sport, and Optimal. I've tried all of them. There's not a huge amount of difference between any of them. You can change all of the lighting. You can put the halo lights on front and rear. These are the usual things like heated mirrors, heated windscreen. Then there's stuff like this, which I enjoy immensely. They are the massaging seat options, of which there are a lot. So you've got body activation, relaxation, body relief, and body slack, which I quite like the idea of, and then waist-hip activation, which I haven't had in years, and then back to home. It's one of those things where it makes some of those European manufacturers feel really, really off the pace in terms of their user control interfaces. This is really good. It also learns what you like, so the longer you have it, the more personalized it gets, which we've seen before, but this takes it a stage further. This is where it's at with electric powertrains. If you've got essentially the same motivation, the user experience starts to be much more important, and it doesn't matter how good the hardware is if the software is rubbish. It's also not slow. When you put your foot down, this thing will go because it's got two motors and four-wheel drive, so it never struggles for grip, and it's also got 536 brake horsepower, so it gets from zero to 62 miles an hour in five and a half seconds. That's like watching a jet take off. The thing is, I thought that might be a bit much, but actually because the car's so heavy, it just feels like it's nippy. You never have to worry about pulling out onto a roundabout or, I don't know, pulling onto a dual carriageway, merging with traffic. It's just nice. The trade-off, and the slight problem with all this, is that unless you've got it in exactly the right mode, this car is deeply disinterested in what we might term handling. Like, if I go around this roundabout even slightly too fast, watch this. Oh, you nasty landlubbers! The pirate captain is back in town! Now, the interesting thing is that if it's in the right mode, it feels okay, but it never really feels like it wants to go around a corner. The steering's pointy enough, the brakes are fine, but that dual chamber magic carpet ride suspension is about one thing, and that thing is ride comfort. When you're being good, it feels like this car fills in all the potholes and drugs all the sleeping policemen. Honestly, it's like having a fight on a waterbed, or possibly having a fight with a waterbed. It's so disconnected from the road surface that it feels like a hovercraft. But let's face it, that's what this kind of car is for. It's not about hooning down a back lane, it's about keeping your passengers as comfortable as possible. It's a transport solution. Think of it like, I don't know, a hover train that you drive. The other thing it does really well is it is incredibly quiet. Now, part of that is the fact that that air suspension isolates you from the road, but the other thing is it's got like double-glazed windows, lots and lots of sound insulation, and it feels like it's like you've hurt your ears. You just don't hear much. They say that this car is actually as quiet as a Mercedes Maybach, and I believe them. It's like when you get off an aeroplane and your ears haven't popped. You open a window and you suddenly go, oh, the rest of the world does exist. But we've been driving it around for a while now, and we have to go and charge it, and that's one thing the Leotor Mega does better than pretty much any other electric car in the world, because this is one of the fastest charging batteries in existence. It'll apparently do up to 520 kilowatts of power, which means 300 miles in about 11 minutes. That gives us the opportunity to go and test a thing called hyper-rapid charging. The only problem is that most UK ultra-rapid chargers will top out at about 350 kilowatts, and that's if they get full power, so we need to go somewhere a bit special. This is Utah Millbrook, a really famous automotive test center in Bedfordshire in the UK, and it's got some whopper chargers for experimental EVs. Park Garages in Blackpool has one 480 kilowatt public charger, but that's in Blackpool, which is a long way from where I live. This car can put 312 miles of range into its battery in 12 minutes. That's 150 miles in under six minutes, and when it slows down over 80 percent, like all EVs do, it's still running at 170 kilowatts. To put that into perspective, I reckon, I don't know, what's an average EV in the UK? A 75 kilowatt hour battery? That would charge in just over 10 and a half minutes, and you start to think, exactly how fast would be fast enough? So we've come here to Utah with its really big high-power chargers to have a little go, and yet this car has a slight problem, and it's this. These chargers can provide the charge, this car can accept the charge, and yet we've got the wrong plug. So the Chinese chargers have a thing called a GBT plug, and we have CCS2. We have to use this adapter to make the two meet, and yet this little bit of electronics here can't accept more than 220 kilowatts. But we thought we'd have a little go and see what it charged to. So press the charge port, plug it in here until it clicks, and then we need to go and get hold of the charger. Now this is very easy. All you need to do is press the green button and then scan the tag and plug the car in. Note this, always good to know there's a rescue hook available if things go wrong. Right, let's see how this goes on. Click, clunk, click, wait for it to all lock, and we're charging. Now I'm going to check exactly what's happening via the screen. It's doing about 180 kilowatts, which is fine, but it is slower than we'd hoped, and it's because of that adapter. The thing is this would charge a lot quicker, and one of the reasons it's able to do it is that it's to do with heat and cold, because there are 13 separate but related systems that either precondition heat or cool that battery to get it able to accept electrons like a Labrador chowing down on a buffet. Zika, another Chinese EV maker, has second generation golden battery in the new 007 saloon, which is apparently even faster, so it's already getting heated. But how fast is fast enough? If you can get two and a half hours of driving time in six minutes and everything goes to plan, which we accept isn't always perfect, then you can't complain, surely. There's just one massive problem with the Mega, and you probably guessed it already. It's currently not on sale in the UK. It's a Chinese-only brand and a Chinese-only model. As a glimpse into what's going on in the rest of the world, it's brilliant. But the kicker? In China, it costs the equivalent of 58,000 pounds, which I think is solid value. But that's in China, where people think a little bit differently. Space and tech are prized, and SUVs don't have the cachet because off-road capability really isn't desired. Evolving premium luxury markets are different shapes to what we're used to in Europe, hence the rise of the luxury MPV. So what do we get? Well, Volvo might well bring in the EM90, which is based on the same bits as the Zika 009 that I was trawling around in China last year, and very interesting that was. But for the moment, if you want that unconventional limousine experience in the UK, what you've got to have is one of these. A Lexus LM350h, and very nice it is too. Now, Lexus has just canned the LS in the UK, so this will be the most luxe Lexus you can buy. So it's an interesting take on swank. And it's not as funky as the Mega, more conventional, and therefore more MPV-ish, but it does do a lot of the same jobs. And I have to say that it is largely the same kind of vibe as the Le Mega, except quite a bit nicer inside. Now, this one's obviously set up as a four-seater, but it's very much first-class transport. And obviously, if I want to experience that, I have to have a driver. Say hello, Charlie. But I don't want Charlie to listen to what I'm saying, so I'm going to close the divider. I also don't want Charlie actually listening to me or seeing me, so I'm going to switch him off. Bye. It's electrochromic glass. How rude. But anyway, the rest of this interior is pretty plush. Obviously, it's all pale leather with these bronze-coloured accents. It's only got two seats in this one, though you can have a seven-seater. This is set up as the ultimate business lounge. And I have to say, there is so much stuff in here. We'll start up here, where it's got a place to put your sunglasses, a place to change all the sunshades. You can change all the lighting. It's got clocks. It's got a lovely little vanity mirror, which you can tilt far enough down to look at your own face. Then in this centre console, you've got many, many HDMI leads and places to charge things, and then the seats, obviously. Now, these really do do the whole bit, so you can lie basically fully flat. I'm not sure that works in a crash. Would you go through the front of the car? I don't know. Obviously, this big divider, which takes you away from your chauffeur, and embedded in the bottom of it is a 48-inch TV, so you can manage that with your laptop. You can work on it. You can just watch a movie if you want. This thing's got some other guy on it. You can also control everything from these two phones here, so if you want to use these as a remote control, it's basically an iPhone that acts as a remote control for all the functions in this car. That's very useful. You can change all the sunshades, but they come down from the top, so that if the sun is low in the horizon, you can still have a bit of daylight and yet knock out all the glare. Then in here, there is a rather lovely fold-out little airline-style table, so you can put your laptop on there and work on things. In the back here is wireless charging. There's a place to put your shoes, which I quite like, because then you can put your toes in the deep pile carpet. There's also, as with the LeMega, a lovely fridge. I just have to say, it is one of those cars where it really does feel like you're not in just a car. You're in some sort of first-class train carriage, but it doesn't quite ride, especially in the back, as well as the LeAuto. This is very much more a car. It's actually based on a car platform, so it's a TNGAK platform. If you're familiar with the Toyota Alphard, well, this Lexus shares quite a few bits and bobs with that. I do like it, though. It feels more classy than the LeAuto. Maybe that's a cultural thing. I don't know, but do you know what? I do actually have to drive this thing, so if I press that... Charlie, pull over for a minute, mate. So what have we got? Well, there's a hybrid powertrain with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine and some electrical assistance to give 247 brake horsepower, which means that this car is not fast. It gets from zero to 62 miles an hour in over nine seconds, which is pretty glacial these days, although we can forgive it, given the mission statement. What I can't really forgive is the fact that even though it's a hybrid and it gets a bit of electrical help when it moves off the line, it's got a CVT gearbox, so it always feels like it's kind of struggling to do stuff, and if you have to put your foot down, actually, you do hear quite a lot of engine noise. It doesn't sound bad, it just doesn't sound cool. The LeAuto doesn't make any noise, it just shoves itself forward like a rocket. Now, it does actually handle a little bit better than the LeAuto Mega. It's not quite as pitchy or floaty, it's a little bit more connected because it's based on a car. It's not got air suspension, it's got variable active damping. It feels a bit more car-like and a bit more familiar, and I think that's the thing that I like the most. This also feels narrower than the LeAuto, so when you're threading it through traffic, because let's face it, most of these things are going to be knocking around in town, it just feels a little better, but it's not got that science fiction, silent, powerful, like completely isolated road feeling that the Mega's got. This feels much more like a car with some posh bits. The interesting thing is the posh bits are posher. This feels like a nicer place to be, but then again, it should because it's twice the price. In some ways, it feels much more luxurious, and in others, it feels more like a normal car. These things are not for the drivers, they're for the passengers, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's like if a car is very good at a specific thing, let it be good at it. Don't make everything a compromise. We're back to the price again. Where the Mega seems like decent value in China, the Lexus LM starts at £90,000 for the seven-seat, and ramps up to just under £113 for the executive jet four-seat Takumi grade like this one. It's more of a business vibe than a car you might buy for family transport. Saying that, a top-tier Volkswagen ID Buzz might not be much cheaper, so food for thought. Now, a space-age Luxo van really isn't that popular in the UK at the moment, but in the rest of the world, it's not so mental an idea, especially in places like Asia, where they're not so wedded to the idea that luxury has to be saloon-shaped. I think they're brilliant, but for a very specific niche, and that niche in the UK at the minute is probably shorthop VIP-type transport rather than a family car. In China, there's more thought about multi-generational transport, but we don't do that so much here. Which is best? Well, at current Chinese prices, I think we're going to have to throw it the Li Auto Megazway. It genuinely looks like a spaceship, it's full of tech, and it feels like something different rather than just another SUV that's had an electric drivetrain stuffed up under it. I think the Lexus is cool, but it's a bit too expensive to really get a grip, so we'll have to see what Volvo comes up with with the EM90. But tell me, if you could have one of these, or a luxury SUV, which would you have? Let me know in the comments.