Is this Australia's cheapest electric SUV? New 2025 GWM Ora EV to take on the BYD Atto 3 and MG ZS EV

Australia’s cheapest electric vehicle (EV) right now, the GWM Ora hatch, is just the entrée.

Mother brand GWM is expected to release an electric compact SUV model inside the next 12 to 18 months, giving its Ora EV sub-brand the substantially more volume potential it needs to succeed in Australia.

While not much is known about what the new EV’s architecture might be, it might be based on GWM’s advanced L.E.M.O.N. platform underpinning the hatch as well as the popular Haval Jolion. The upmarket Wey Latte/03 released in China in 2021 could also provide some reference to possible sizing and proportions.

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Being an EV, the second Ora model slated for Australia is also expected to share other components with today’s hatch, which was unveiled in China all the way back in 2020 as the Haomao and elsewhere as the Good Cat, Funky Cat and – more latterly – the 03, depending on market. Why it’s badged simply as Ora here is unclear.

Plugging into the growing small-to-medium SUV EV segment currently dominated by the Tesla Model Y and BYD Atto 3, the Ora SUV might end up wearing 04 or 05 badges… although nobody outside GWM is saying for now.

The only Ora sold in Australia for now is a small hatchback.

GWM Australia Head of Marketing and Communications Steve Maciver declined to reveal any of Ora’s forward plans, but he did hint that bigger and better things may be in the Ora pipeline soon, based on the strategies of the company’s other brands, Haval, Tank and Ute/Cannon.

“GWM sees a very strong future for Ora,” he said.

The success of the BYD Atto 3 sets a benchmark for other EV SUV rivals to meet.

“If you draw a bow and look at the other individual model series, the structure makes sense… at Haval, we got a small SUV, medium SUV and a medium coupe SUV; at Tank we’ve got a medium SUV and an upper medium/large SUV; and who knows we’ve got coming beyond that.

“If you look at Ora at that same vertical, we’ve got a small hatch. Ora absolutely has a future in this market as part of the GWM stable.”

No, this is not a VW Type 1 Beetle, but the Ora Ballet Cat - a car not destined for Australia, sadly.

With Haval handling petrol and petrol-electric hybrid SUVs with the Jolion and H6 models, Tank taking care of the off-road 4WD wagon scene with the 300 and 500 Hybrid and GWM Ute’s Cannon and coming Cannon Alpha providing a two-pronged Ford Ranger competitor, the company’s vehicle portfolio is ripe for an SUV-shaped EV.

After all, our favourite EV period as well as Australia’s fourth bestselling vehicle (behind the Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Toyota RAV4) is the Tesla Model Y midsized SUV.

When will we see GWM’s EV SUV in Australia… and how much will it cost?

The ageing MG ZS EV is currently the cheapest new EV SUV sold in Australia.

It is believed an Ora SUV might be unveiled before the end of the year, ahead of a 2025 local debut at the very earliest. Let’s call it an MY26 model to stay safe.

It is possible the Ora SUV will have the Atto 3 squarely in its crosshairs with a circa-$45,000 starting point given GWM’s aggressive pricing strategy with the Ora hatch.

The success of the BYD Atto 3 sets a benchmark for other EV SUV rivals to meet.

The Ora hatch was launched in early 2023 from $44,490 drive-away. It then received several price cuts dropping to $39,990 before on-road costs to meet the game-changing MG 4 and BYD Dolphin challengers in July 2023, and then to $35,990 drive-away earlier this month to stoke consumer interest.

The MG ZS EV starts from a keen $39,990 drive-away at the moment, but this model is based on an ageing internal combustion engine platform, rather than an EV-specific architecture like the BYD and Tesla.

With hints of Porsche's earliest Panamera models, the Lightning is Ora's performance EV sedan.

As reported a few weeks ago, GWM has said it has leveraged “continued favourable exchange rates and supply to sharpen Ora pricing”.

With only 282 Ora hatch registrations to the end of March, an SUV stablemate cannot come soon enough, especially considering that – over the same time period – some 2220 Atto 3s and 6835 Model Ys have found homes in Australia.

The other Ora models sold elsewhere but not available for us include the VW Beetle-esque Ballet Cat and swoopy Lightning Cat/07/Grand Cat sedan. Neither are anticipated to launch here any time soon.