BEST TESTS '24 #2: GWM’s electric ORA surprised. In many ways!
Auto tested more than 80 cars in 2024. As is tradition, we re-publish our twelve favourite tests of the year as our Best Tests daily through December. Then we present three Auto Special Awards in Best EV, Best Bakkie and Performance car of the year 2024. And then we choose the Top 3 Best Tests, before we announce Best Test 2024 on 1 January 2025. So come back for your daily Auto entertainment everyday through your holidays!
Auto Best Tests 2024 #2: GWM Ora
GWM’s electric ORA surprised. In more ways than one!
Aura. An energy field that is held to emanate from a living being. That’s its most common definition. Not sure if the ORA badge is a take on one’s aura, but this little electric GWM certainly had us thinking about the possibility in our handy two weeks with it.
One of the first things you notice about this surprising car, is that it has no start button. It unlocks as it recognises you approach. So just open the door, sit inside, buckle up and select D or R on the bezel selector in the middle. And drive. It senses your aura (via the key in your pocket of course) to cut out a good few steps from the good old days of twisting keys.
And then Carol tried to drive. Plain and simple, ORA refused to select any gear. Not even N. Just sat there in P. So I hopped in and voila! It obeyed! Which left us scratching our heads. It never happened once. It happened every time. ORA? Aura? ESP? Sexist? WTF? Until a week later, on a warmer day when Carol just got in and drove.
What the hell was this car getting up to?
Now what? Well, we can’t say for sure, but being warmer, she wasn’t wearing a pashmina. So her aura was a little less charged. Did the car easier sense the key? Well, that’s what we think. But our ORA’s attitude to aura will long remain a mystery. Interesting, as I said!
Anyway, getting back to the test. The ORA 03 is GWM’s chic and novel first stab at an electric vehicle. To be honest, it arrived against one or two pretty strong preconceptions. But by the time it left us, the big little ORA certainly had wheedled itself onto our hearts. Best of all, GWM sees its electric cars as an alternative in a range dedicated to full customer choice. Including that between ICE, HEV and EV.
So let’s jump straight under the bonnet here. Or is that the frunk? Either way, its 126 kW 250 Nm permanent magnet synchronous motor drives the front wheels. Weighing a light (for an EV) 1.5 tonnes, GWM claims 0-100 km/h in 8.5 seconds and just under 160 km/h top end. It’s much better than that. Take a look at the data below. The stars, and our VBox don’t lie.
ORA proved quicker than claimed. Smarter too.
The motor takes juice from a 48 kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery at 16.7kWh/100 km for a range of up to 310 km. We saw 290 km fully charged. It likely delivered far more than that. And you’ll get over 420 km out of a bigger 63 kWh nickel-manganese cobalt battery a bit further up the ORA pecking order.
This is where it gets interesting again. GWM will supply a 7kW home wall box charger, but for once, we don’t think that’s necessary. Unlike some EV’s we have jacked into our faithful standard home socket that promised seven days to charge up, ORA 03 charged up full, happily, overnight. On good old Eskom 220V, using what we initially thought to be too flimsy a cable. GWM claims five and a half hours to charge full, but overnight was fine. Can’t drive while we sleep. It isn’t good for the aura.
Crunching the numbers, petrol costs R25 per litre, so a similar gas car’s real world 7 litres per 100 km quite simply equates to R175 per 100 km. Eskom charges about R3.50 per kilowatt-hour. So at 16 kWh per 100 km, the ORA 03 will set you back R56 per 100 km on juice. If you happen to have a decent solar pack at home, make that zero. Being able to charge up so quick on Eskom is a huge advantage, no?
Quiet ORA complements its silent EV ride
Sporting regular MacPherson strut front and torsion beam rear suspension, ORA 3 is impressively quiet to complement its silent EV ride. That’s backed by four Standard, Auto, ECO, ECO+ and the cheeky Sport driving modes. Selected via a button hidden behind the Light, Comfort and Sport mode electric power multifunction steering wheel.
The electric car is of course fast running out of charge as the ‘future motoring solution’. As an alternative though, an EV offers an interesting choice. Which is why ORA is still big for GWM. The Chinese giant sees its electric brand as far more than just cars. ORA embraces fashion, lifestyle and design as much as it does alternate mobility. In a blend of old-world charisma and advanced technology.
The ORA 03 certainly looks the part in this mars red. It has an active air intake front grille ‘for optimised performance’. What? How the hell does an active grille enhance EV performance? Tell us another one! LOL. A bit of a cross between a Mini and a Beetle with a little old Nissan Micra sprinkled in, ORA pulls it off better than all of those. With zany animated follow-me-home DRL LED headlamps, hidden LED taillights, and more.
Vegan-friendly luxurY, attention to fine detail
We’ve covered how you board it, but once inside, ORA’s a star. Well for sure when you consider its sexy quality, vegan-luxury materials and attention to fine detail. Never mind space. 4.23 metres long, 1.82 m wide, and 1.6 m tall, the 5-seater ORA’s dedicated GWM electric ME platform rides on a long 2.65 m wheelbase to deliver copious room inside. The 228 litre boot is ample and spreads to 858 litres with the bench down.
Smart two-tone leatherette power seats set the scene. CarPlay and Auto smartphone mirroring infotainment is courtesy of a pair of 10.25-inch touchscreens merged like a Merc across the dash. But the logic is odd, and the screen fonts are too small. It has pretty switches. But they run all the wrong functions. Why not just climate and audio as they should? Euro NCAP will punish ORA for this. Hopefully a rethink will fix it in time.
While we’re moaning, let’s get the rest of our complaints out the way. This base model packs dual front SRS, front side, front centre, and side curtain airbags, three-point pretensioner seatbelts with ISOFIX child seat tethers and unfastened warning. Active safety comes by EBD ABS brakes, ES and TC, and roll movement intervention. Even tyre sensors and a repair kit.
ORA least likely to piss you off about EV failings
Ours also had a full driver assistant pack. With everything from secondary collision mitigation and road sign recognition to adaptive intelligent speed cruise control. With lane, keep, change and departure, intelligent turning and traffic jam functions, pedestrian and cyclist auto emergency braking and even an intersection function.
Add front and rear collision, rear cross traffic, 360° panoramic view, door open warning and collision auto door lock & unlock. In other words, the whole chicken. Which is all super cool and most welcome. But not everyone wants their ORA to drive them all the time. So why should we delve so deep into the layers of touchscreen tabs to turn it off every time? Surely one simple little button will do so much better.
All of which leads us to conclude that the GWM ORA is Auto’s surprise road test of the year so far. It arrived at an office loaded with prejudice and vehemently opposed to the global EV kneejerk. And proud to be part of its downfall. But ORA got to us in its fortnight here. From its odd aura-dodging ways, to how it actually simplifies its EV means as a fair alternative rather than lying about being the answer. To its quirky, sexy and wholly offbeat nature.
We’d go as far as to say that if you want to try an EV, the GWM ORA 03 is one least likely to piss you off when it comes to discovering the failings nobody ever told you to expect from a battery car, as you no doubt will. So bravo GWM on a first EV job very well done. And here’s to that button… - Michele Lupini
ROAD TESTED: GWM Ora 03 300 Super Luxury
Motor: 126 kW 250 Nm synchronous electric
Battery: 48 kWh lithium-ion phosphate
Drive: Direct FWD
TESTED:
0-60 km/h: 3.50 sec
0-100 km/h: 7.50 sec
0-120 km/h: 10.80 sec
0-160 km/h: 22.12 sec
400m: 15.6 sec @ 141 km/h
80-120 km/h: 5.63 sec
120-160 km/h: 11.32 sec
CLAIMED:
VMax: 159 km/h
Energy: 16.3 kWh/100 km
Range: 320 km
Warranty/Service: 7y 200K/7y 105K km
Battery Warranty: 8y 150K km
LIST PRICE: R686K
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