Great Wall opens up to making NEVs with launch of Ora brand

Great Wall Motor Co unveiled its all-new brand of Ora electric vehicles last week, marking the first step taken by China's biggest SUV maker into the electro-mobility that is gaining momentum across the globe.

The move is seen as its response to the Chinese government's new more stringent requirements on fuel consumption and, more importantly, the increasingly attractive prospects for such vehicles.

The new brand is dedicated to producing and selling mini and small electric cars, said Ora General Manager Ning Shuyong, at the brand's launch ceremony held in Baoding, Hebei province, where Great Wall Motor is headquartered.

Ning, a former senior executive at Geely and its Volvo unit, said the urban young are Ora's target customers.

Ora's first model－a crossover called iQ, with a range of 360 km－is slated to hit the market during the Chengdu Motor Show in September.

Another two models, the R1 and R2, are scheduled to roll off the assembly line in 2019.

Though not among the first Chinese automakers to offer electric cars, Ning said Ora has set itself the goal of becoming a leader in small electric vehicles.

"Unlike many others, we do not produce electric cars on gasoline car platforms; we do not produce cars because of subsidies. We are more concerned about the market after the subsidies are phased out," Ning added.

China has been offering subsidies since 2009 to stimulate the development of new energy vehicles, and such financial stimuli have since accounted for a sizable chunk of many electric carmakers' revenues.

But it has decided to withdraw the subsidies by the end of 2020.

Analysts said the Ora brand will help Great Wall Motor to cut the overall fuel consumption of its SUVs and meet China's demand that carmakers must amass credits for their new energy vehicles, equivalent to 10 percent of annual sales by 2019 and 12 percent in 2020.

Without major moves into new energy vehicles, Great Wall Motor would most likely have had to buy credits from others because of its focus on SUVs, they added.

Great Wall Motor said, however, that its ambition goes beyond meeting credit requirements.

Convinced that smart new energy vehicles are the future of the automotive sector, the carmaker said it set up the team for such vehicles a decade ago and has since spent around 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) on research and development of such platforms and models, as well as connectivity and autonomous driving.

Including the Ora-branded small electric cars, the carmaker is planning to introduce a total of 12 models by 2025, including Mini-branded electric cars in its partnership with BMW, as well offering larger-sized plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars under its Haval and Wey brands.

Earlier this year Reuters reported that Great Wall Motor aims to more than double its annual sales to 2 million vehicles by 2025, with roughly a third of those expected to be all-electric battery cars.

At the Ora launch Zhang Wenhui, a vice-president of the carmaker, said the auto industry will see dramatic changes in the coming years, with sales of new energy passenger cars in China reaching 2.5 million around 2022, accounting for 10 percent of total passenger car sales.

He added that ride-hailing, car-sharing as well as autonomous driving will also become commonplace in people's daily mobility, and that prospect has galvanized Great Wall Motor into putting mobility services alongside its SUV and new energy vehicle strategies within its five-year business plan.

Among other initiatives, the carmaker will build a fleet of 200,000 new energy vehicles for ride-hailing and car-sharing services in 200 cities around the country by 2020, Zhang said.