2025 GWM Ora 07 review: An Ora of calm
It looks like a Porsche and mews like a cat, but is that enough for the 07 to stand out in the EV world?
IF YOU’VE ever wondered what it would look like if car designers could cross an electric vehicle (EV) with a cat, the GWM Ora 07 is your answer. It’s sleek, curious and full of quirks, and if you can get it to cooperate (after no end of prodding), it can be surprisingly charming.
Like the average furry feline, it’s also divisive. You either love it or hate it, although as a car, it’s definitely something that makes people look twice. Squint a little and you’ll see hints of Porsche, with a touch of Panamera in the shape. The stance is low and wide, and in a car park full of anonymous electric things, the Ora stands out like a neon sign in a sea of plain white LED bulbs.
The only version on sale in Singapore has a single-motor, front-wheel drive setup with 204 horsepower. An 83.5 kilowatt-hour battery gives it a laudable range of 570 kilometres, though its nickel cobalt manganese chemistry means it will last longer if you avoid charging it to 100 per cent. Still, for most owners the 07 would require a weekly feeding, which should be fairly manageable.
The cabin is just as eye-catching as the exterior. It’s all soft curves inside, with a tasteful mix of pastel tones and metallic finishes. Soft-touch plastics abound, the switches have a satisfying tactility and the upholstery feels properly premium. There’s also a full-length tinted glass roof that does plenty for the cabin’s ambience, making it feel light and airy.
The sporty front seats wouldn’t look out of place in a Porsche either, although you do perch slightly high up in them, so there’s never the illusion of being in a low-slung sports car.
Instead of sportiness, there’s a sense of whimsy baked into the 07. Start the car up and the screens greet you with a welcome animation straight out of Finding Nemo, before a coy little mew plays through the speakers, a throwback to the fact that the 07 is called the “Lightning Cat” in China.
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As if it isn’t enough to have your car make feline noises at you, the 07 also gives you three simulated engine sounds to choose from. I left mine on “multi-cylinder”, which has a slightly raspy tone that mimics a revving engine surprisingly well, because utter silence can make an EV dull.
Yet, while the 07 has personality coming out of its ears, it falls short on practicality. The rear seats are decently spacious, but the boot is small (at just 333 litres), shallow and awkwardly shaped. The portal between it and the folded rear seats is narrow, and there are no hooks or nets to keep things from rolling about. I’m not sure you could get a Brompton in there, but if you care about such things, this isn’t the car for you.
It’s also not one for keen drivers. It’s decently quick, cracking 100 kmh in 7.9 seconds, but with all the motor’s torque going to the front wheels, punching the accelerator sometimes makes the steering wheel tug in your hands. The traction is, to put it kindly, modest, so in addition to mewing at you, the Ora can also make its front tyres chirp with gusto.
The chassis doesn’t feel particularly tied down, either, with a fair bit of bobbing and weaving through corners, which makes hustling it along less rewarding than it looks.
That said, it’s smooth and quiet in a way that fits the modern EV playbook, and it should be fine to live with as long as you don’t expect it to drive like a Porsche, despite the looks.
If anything’s going to drive you up the wall, it’s the controls, which rely too much on touchscreen activation. Adjusting the air-con vents requires diving into a menu, which is just needlessly fiddly. Fancy a massage from the front seats? That’ll be four taps through the menu system. When I want a massage, I want it now, darn it.
Worst of all is the auto-parking function, which is so buried in sub-menus that by the time you’ve activated it, the driver behind you will have started wishing all sorts of dreadful things on you and your next seven generations.
For all that, if the Ora 07 doesn’t have the polish of a Porsche, at least it doesn’t have the price tag of one either. What it does have is personality, which is in short supply in the EV world, and much of the combustion realm, come to think of it.
Driving a car like this says you can live with a few shortcomings as long as the drive is comfy, the styling is bold and there’s a bit of character to brighten your day. Putting up with a few quirks is part and parcel of owning a cat, after all.
GWM Ora 07 Motor power/torque 204 hp / 340 N Battery type/net capacity Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt / 83.5 kWh Charging time/type 8 hours (11 kW AC), 32 minutes 30 to 80 per cent (88 kW DC) Range 570 km (WLTP) 0-100 kmh 7.9 seconds Top speed 170 kmh Efficiency 16 kWh/100 km Agent Cycle & Carriage Ora Price S$199,999 with Certificate of Entitlement Available Now
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