The ORA 07 will be Great Wall Motor’s entry into the rather crowded mid-sized e-sedan market over here.
While it was just rather recently where the only mid-sized mid-market electrified sedan in Malaysia was to be the Honda Civic RS e:HEV, these past six months have nevertheless seen more than a few fully-electric offerings in that segment land locally. And the latest of which is the upcoming ORA 07 from Great Wall Motor, with its order books now being flung open before its imminent official arrival over here in the coming weeks.
A direct competitor to the newly-launched BYD Seal and rather popular Tesla Model 3, the second addition to the local GWM lineup (after the cutesy ORA Good Cat) will be arriving in two variants: the Long Range and the Performance.
Discussing the Long Range first, the tech specs of this particular variant headlines with an impressive NEDC-claimed range of 640 km from its 83.5-kWh ternary lithium battery. Its single front-mounted motor meanwhile is rated at a reasonable 204 PS and 340 Nm of torque, which in turn translates to an adequately fast century sprint time of 8.5 seconds.
Though for those who really want to get a move on, the Performance variant of the ORA 07 should satisfy those desires with an adequately speedy claimed 0-100 km/h time of 4.3 seconds. This stat is to be made possible courtesy of a motor at each axle that outputs a combined 408 PS and 680 Nm of torque, but it is worth highlighting that constant utilisation of all that power won’t do any good to the claimed 550 km range of this particular trim.
Just touching a little more on what the ORA 07 has to offer here, from the outside its bug-eyed face and liftback arse is complemented by retractable door handles and an active shutter grille. The Performance trim over in Thailand also features a powered tailgate, as well as an active rear spoiler alá Porsche Panamera.
Moving on inside now, the admittedly Bugatti Chiron-esque central stack with vertical rotary dials is joined by a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster and a 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system. Other amenities featured within the ORA 07 includes an 11-speaker sound system and 60:40 split-folding rear seats, with the Performance trim adding a heads-up display and ventilated front seats with a massaging option.
Worth highlighting too on the topic of kit is for the ORA 07 to come standard with the usual comprehensive suite of active safety tech. These include a lane departure system, LKA (lane keeping system), BSD (blind spot monitoring system), and supports functions such as 360º panoramic view camera, intelligent evasion, traffic sign recognition etc.
Great Wall Motor Malaysia has announced that the ORA 07 will be available in three colours: Crystal Purple, Amethyst Gray and Jade White. Unfortunately however, what has not been revealed thus far is the price of this particular e-sedan.
Just on a totally unrelated note here, the ORA 07 currently retails over in our neighbours up north for between 1.299 million baht (RM 172,000) and 1.499 million baht (RM 200,000). Given that its two main competitors in the form of the Tesla Model 3 and BYD Seal are also to be hovering around that price over here too, let’s just say then for the list price of this e-sedan will not be straying far from that range if Great Wall Motor has any plans to shift any of them over here.
To further sweeten the deal for those who book now too, the Chinese automaker is throwing in a limited-time deal of 5-year free maintenance package (including parts and labour). Though it remains to be seen how much use an EV will actually get out of this package…
