The single biggest complaint I hear about electric vehicles is the cost. That’s a fair criticism with just a couple coming in under the $50K mark in Australia.
The ORA R1 is the first offering from Great Wall Motors and also happens to be the cheapest all-electric car at just £7,000GBP, that’s around A$13,000 in Aussie dollars.
Now if the ORA R1 was to arrive in Australia, it’d attract transport costs, import duties and of course 10% GST. This means the final price would likely be somewhere closer to $20k.
For that price, the car actually still represents a pretty overall package, even if it does look pretty familiar.
Fully Charged recently had the opportunity to take the car for a spin and Elliot Richards actually rates it pretty highly.
For the price, you’re obviously not getting outrageous performance, or a futuristic redesign of the interior, instead, it’s a demonstration of what can happen when you focus on price and range.
Included is a 33kW battery, which is good for around 350km (NEDC). That’s actually really practical as a little city car that gets you from A to B. Charging takes around 40 minutes to go from 0-80%.
Whatever you think of the design, the value for money here is impressive and if Great Wall Motors ever brought the ORA R1 to Australia, I think it’d definitely get some people thinking about an EV for their next car.
One big problem with this car is its circa 100 km/h top speed… that is too slow. If it topped out at around 130 km/h it would be fine.