You’ve probably never heard of the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC). This is the firm that produces the resurrected London Taxi in the form of an electric cab with a 1.5-liter Volvo-sourced engine acting as a range extender. LEVC is owned by Geely – the same manufacturer that also owns Lotus, Volvo, Smart, Zeekr, Polestar, and others – and is expanding its business into new territory with the L380.
The single-box vehicle has a minimalist design inspired by the Airbus A380 with a coast-to-coast LED strip at the front and main beam headlights mounted in the bumper. From the side, it looks pretty ordinary aside from the flush door handles and the high greenhouse. What’s under the skin is more interesting, though.
The L380 rides on Geely’s Space Oriented Architecture (SOA), a platform developed over a period of 2.5 years from R&D centers in China, Sweden, the UK, and Germany. The spacious cabin can be had with either six or eight seats with the latter option featuring four rows of seats. The minivan is 209.3 inches long, making it 5.0 inches longer than the Chrysler Pacifica. The wheelbase is 125.4 inches versus 121.6 inches for the American MPV.
Power is provided by a single-motor electric powertrain with a peak output of 268 horsepower. A nickel-cobalt-manganate (NMC) battery package stores the electric energy, though there’s no information regarding its capacity yet. Geely’s SOA platform underpins battery packs ranging between 73 and 120 kilowatt-hours.
The L380 will enter the Chinese electric minivan market at some point next year. It will compete in a very crowded segment with rivals from Toyota, Volvo, Zeekr, Denza, Trumpchi, and other automakers.
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