BRIGHTER AURA
GWM’s Ora GT looks very different to the rest of the range. But does it justify a near-$60k price?
You might remember the GWM Ora from the heady days of New Zealand’s Clean Car Discount, when it engaged in a short battle with the MG4 for title of the country’s least expensive new battery electric vehicle (BEV). It won, then lost, then won again.
It’s still on top — or at the bottom if you prefer — right now, because that price reduction carries on until the end of June. The Ora Standard Range starts at $42,990, undercutting the MG4 Excite by a solid $4k.
But that’s not why we’re here. Meet the top Ora GT model: Grand Tourer by name perhaps, although one for “stylish and chic city drivers” by nature, according to its maker.
The Ora is very much an urban EV in the same mould as the MG4, BYD’s Dolphin and Atto 3, and even the just-launched Omoda E5.
Given the opening price of $43k for the Ora, you might need to take a moment to get your head around spending another $16k for the GT. The gulf is partly explained by the price cut for the Standard and Extended Range models, and partly by battery size and equipment levels.
Everything from the Extended Range upwards gets a larger
64kWh battery, which raises the WLTP range from 310km to at least
400km (more about the “at least” in a minute). The Ultra ($55,990) raises the game again with the likes of automatic parking with front sensors (rears are standard across the range), power/fold mirrors, panoramic glass roof, power tailgate and power/ memory/vented/heated/massage front seats.
If you’re able to spend the extra money, the GT looks like a better bet. For a start it looks decidedly different, with bespoke GT front and rear bumpers, special wheels and a lot of quite strange red detailing.
Inside, there’s a special steering wheel and red interior stitching. And it tries to justify its GT credentials with an additional Individual drive mode and launch control function — plus one extra piece of safety tech: Front Cross Traffic Alert with braking.
But like we said, same battery and power output as lesser Oras and in fact the less aerodynamic body kit means the GT has 20km less range than other 63kWh Oras; it’s also the slowest to 100km/h in the line-up. Only by 0.1sec . . . but official is official.
It’s not sporty in the warm-hatch sense. But it is fun to look at, it is fun to be in and it is fun to drive . . . in its own way.
The ride is firm for a city car (no firmer than other Oras, though), but it does endow the car with a sense of dynamic solidity in the corners. The steering’s not bad, either.
It’s brisk off the line in an EV way, although the 0-100km/h time of 8.5sec is only on a par with other mainstream family EVs.
In a larger context, there are two things that put a cap on its sportier aspirations. The first is its frontdrive configuration, which makes it noticeably less composed than the RWD MG4. The second is a dire lack of traction in the wet. That’s partly tyre choice and partly electronics that don’t seem to be able to reign in instant EV torque even under part-throttle: on a rainy day the front wheels can spin to the extent that the car wants to go into terminal understeer.
On the plus side, the Ora’s overly active driver assists seem to have settled from the last time we drove one. Maybe we’re just getting used to them, but maybe there have been factory software updates along the way — something Chinese brands are very good at and very quick to issue.
The car’s retro exterior styling flourishes continue on the inside. It’s EV-minimalist in places, but with chrome switchgear and little grilles adorning the ventilation outlets.
You do have to get to grips with the twist-and-go rotary gear selector, which can’t be hurried, and the slightly murky operating system, which presents a lot of information but arguably puts too much on each screen.
At 4.3m in length, the Ora has a footprint slightly bigger than your average supermini, but the long wheelbase endows it with impressive interior space. It’s a totally capable four-up cruiser, the only real issue being the modest 228-litre boot.
The Ora has some issues for sure, but it’s also a very . . . happy car. At its special price of $43k we still reckon the entry Standard Range is the one to go for, because you’re getting so much for your money. But if you want to stand out a bit more and embrace the tongue-in-cheek aura of the Ora, the GT certainly does the trick.