GWM ORA's Lightning Cat Chinese roll out

02 November 2022 | David Young

GWM ORA has launched a pure electric model called Lightning Cat in China, which was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show 2022

GWM ORA's Lightning Cat Chinese roll out

At the launch event, Dong Yudong, CEO of the ORA brand, introduced highlights of the new car to the public. He was also awarded the CATARC (China Automotive Technology & Research Center) TOP Safety "Collision Challenge Certificate" for Lightning Cat which was issued by Zhang Jinhuan from the China Society of Automotive Engineers.

Earlier, the Lightning Cat was tested by CATARC about high-speed spiral rollover and falling. The test was taken at an authorised site of CATARC. Before it began, the model's intelligent assisted driving functions were all turned off. Then, it was operated by a robot to run at 60km/h towards the spiral single-sided bridge and caused a huge crash that made the car roll 540° and fell into the pit. The maximum drop in the test was over 6 meters.

After the test, the occupant compartment of the model remained well and provided enough living space for passengers to survive an accident. The structure inside the battery pack is intact and no electrolyte leakage or spontaneous combustion was observed after 24 hours left to stand.

ORA Lightning Cat adopts a cage-like car structure. Its body is made of high-strength steel. The advanced hot-stamped steel with a maximum strength of 2,000 MPa was adopted for the model's A/B pillars. All these can ensure the safety of the vehicle and occupants in case of a crash.

The Worry-free Battery of the model also passed 4 special CATARC safety tests for batteries under extreme conditions. There was no fire or explosion caused by pin-prick, fire, and other tests.

Various intelligent functions of driving assistance, which were turned off in the test, are also highlights of the ORA Lightning Cat. It is equipped with ORA-PILOT 3.0 intelligent driving assistance system, which can smartly identify vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, and others through its cameras and radars. In case of an unsafe distance from the obstacles, the system can automatically make an alarm and take emergency measures to reduce the risk.

GWM ORA is expected to bring more high-quality pure electric models to global users, and provide a cleaner, safer, and smarter travel experiences.