GWM ORA vs Smart 1

What's the difference?

The GWM Ora is a solid electric car for the city with an extremely competitive price, balanced with some flaws that might frustrate some - Android phone owners especially. But the GT variant doesn’t offer enough to justify how much more expensive it is than the variants below.

It has a slightly lower range, no more performance (not that it needs more power), a features list almost identical to the Ultra and arguably loses its appealing cutesy looks. 

While the rest of the Ora line-up has its strengths and a cute but daring design, the GT effectively offers only its bark-over-bite styling changes.

If the Ora is on your shopping list, it’s certainly worth checking out the $43,990 Ultra, or even the $40,990 Extended Range if its list of features suits you. But if you for some reason enjoy the GT’s styling, that extra spend might be worth it.

It’s easy to get lost in marketing hype, but — based on first impressions — the Smart #1 does what it says on the tin. This is a Chinese-built SUV that feels more premium than most, and one which is priced to tempt you from one of the German big three. The warranty isn’t good enough, though, and the multimedia screen can be infuriating, but it drives very nicely, especially on suburban roads.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Yep, as a step-up from the Ora Ultra, the GT’s main selling point is its styling. For a car with a 400km driving range, it’s so non-threatening it looks like it would get beaten up and have its lunch money stolen by dual-cabs if it left the city - but cute works, just ask Mini or Fiat.

Its headlights have a splash of Porsche 911 in them. There are some angles that even look a little like someone had an Abarth explained to them then tried to draw it. More than one friend has told me it reminds them of a VW Beetle.

None of that bothers me in particular, but the GT-specific additions to the Ora make it feel like a deeply unserious car.

The fake carbon trim is tacky on a car that has no performance improvement over its base variant sibling, the red strip under the number plate looks like a tongue poking out under an overbite, the wheels look like Tony Stark designed them, and the rear ‘wing’ and diffuser just don’t feel at home.

One thing that didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would was the lack of ‘traditional’ tail-lights, instead a light bar under the rear window takes that role.

The rest of the Ora range is cute, fun, and looks at home in the city where the Ora is at its best. The GT’s features are mostly the same as the Ultra, so the extra $3000 for the GT exterior doesn’t really feel like value.

Inside, however, the design is less in-yer-face. A tidy set-up features a Mini-style row of switches (for some of the climate control) under a bar that spans the dash with the vents integrated.

The steering wheel is big, arguably too big, behind it is the 10.25-inch driver display attached to the central multimedia display. Everything’s very tidy and minimalistic inside, even the gear selector is a round dial.

It looks like a reasonably fashionable interior, but when it comes to the functionality, it starts to fall apart.

There is an impossibility pretty model in Smart’s new line-up, but the #1 ain’t it. While the #3 — which has also just launched — is a sleek-looking, coupe-style SUV, the #1 is a top-heavy small SUV that doesn’t shine from every angle.

Front-on, or from a front three-quarter angle, the #1 definitely works, with the brand setting out to remove unnecessary fussiness from the design, leaving smooth and rounded bodywork in its place.

There are no body creases or weird angles here, instead it’s a smooth, fluid-like design that flows from the front LED lights bar to the smooth shoulder lines to the matching light treatment at the rear. 

But it’s at the rear where, for mine, the design begins to fall over. From that angle, the #1 looks skinny and top-heavy, especially when wearing the red hat of the Brabus model.

Still, eye of the beholder and all that.

Inside, though, the #1 kicks all sorts of goals, presenting as a properly premium-feeling EV space that’s swimming with technology and lovely cabin materials.

I particularly love the letterbox-style screen that replaces the traditional dashboard. It’s not distracting or overbearing like some twin-screen set-ups, but clearly shows you the key driving stuff you need when you’re on the road.

Side note, though, the massive central screen is super clear and lightning fast, but as usual you need to spend some (a lot) of time with it to figure out where all the functions are hiding, with most of the car’s key controls hidden within its labyrinth.

And side note two, the background graphics look like they were designed by a cordial-addled child, it is busy, cartoonish and out of keeping with the calm, grown-up nature of the #1’s cabin.

I can see the appeal of the Ora, but there are some glaring issues that I suspect many will find frustrating over time during ownership.

I’ll start with the big one - Android Auto. Or the lack thereof. Apple CarPlay is available however, even wirelessly.

Being a car journalist in 2024 involves a lot of playing around with in-car tech, and it’s been an awfully long time since I wasn’t able to mirror my phone to a car’s central screen where those with an Apple iPhone could. About 70 per cent of the world uses a phone running Android, by the way. Mostly Samsungs, like mine, but pretty much anything else that isn’t an iPhone too.

It wouldn’t be as major an issue if there was a navigation function in the car’s native multimedia system, but there isn’t. Having only a Bluetooth connection and no map felt a little like taking a step back in time, with an old iPad tacked onto the dash. No Fruit Ninja though.

Smaller things come down to basic ergonomics. The touchscreen itself and the system on it are simple and easy enough to use, if a little unresponsive. The driver display is fairly simple and doesn’t fall too far into the trap of sub-menus on sub-menus.

Physically, the cabin is almost there - the seat and steering wheel adjustment, however, made it a little tricky for me to find a comfortable driving position. 

I’m pretty much dead-on the average height of an Australian man, and the lack of tilt for the base of the seat meant no under-thigh support if I was to be the right distance to have a proper hold on the steering wheel - not telescopically adjustable, by the way.

Another interesting ergonomic fail is the placement of the drive mode select button (one of the GT’s few unique features) being to the right side of the steering column, near where you’d expect rarely-used controls like the headlight height adjust to be - or in this case a couple of centimetres from the button that kills the power to the battery if pressed while not in motion.

This caused severe embarrassment at a set of lights while searching for the drive mode switch, with no obvious way to start the car again, short of opening and closing the driver door.

Oh, and switching through the drive modes elicits a unique videogame-style chime or jingle for each mode. Gimmicky at first, potentially rather irritating after some time.

A positive of the interior layout, however, is the space in the rear seats is fairly generous for a small car - at almost six-feet tall behind my own seating position, I wasn’t lacking space to move and the seat itself is comfortable enough for a decent trip.

Behind that, a relatively limited 228-litre boot is probably less useful for a decent trip, though its 858L of space with the rear seats folded down is more handy in a pinch.

The Smart #1 measures just under 4.3m long, just over 1.8m in width and around 1.6m in height, and it rides on a 2.75m wheelbase. And the perk of the Smart’s EV powertrain, the brand says, is Mercedes-Benz E-Class levels of space in the back seat, despite the #1’s diminutive footprint.

It’s a big claim, and while I didn’t break out the tape measure I can say the backseat feels plenty generous, and because the rear pew slides forwards or backwards by 15cm, you can choose whether you want more legroom or more luggage space.

Speaking of which, pop the auto-opening boot (by hitting the ‘a’ in the ‘Smart’ lettering, which I couldn’t figure out without help) and you’ll find 323 litres of space with the back seat as far back as it goes, growing to 411 litres with it pushed all the way forward. There’s also a 15-litre frunk.

Smart says the #1 weighs 1800kg, adding it will tow 1600kg — but I’m sure you can imagine the impact a heavy load will have on your driving range.

The #1 is available in three trim levels — the Pro+, Premium and Brabus — and pricing (before on-road costs) climbs from $54,900 to $58,900 and $67,900. 

Brabus, by the way, was a lesser-known Mercedes-Benz tuning arm, a little like AMG, which should give you some idea of what to expect from the performance-badged models.

Anyway, that pricing is good enough to undercut key rivals, including the Volvo EX30 (from $59,990) and BMW iX1 ($78,900), and it’s drastically less than Mercedes-Benz's EQA 250 ($84,900), all before on-road costs.

Also firmly in the Smart’s favour is that there isn’t a cheap-feeling model among them, with even the Pro+ feeling properly well-equipped and premium.

Entry-level cars score 19-inch alloys, a panoramic roof, LED lighting, a powered tailgate and a 12.8-inch central screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a 9.2-inch digital dashboard. There’s wireless device charging and a decent stereo, too.

The Premium then adds matrix LED headlights, leather trim, a huge head-up display and a better Beats stereo, while the Brabus scores a unique interior and exterior treatment, better suspension and a launch control function.

All four variants of the Ora have the same outputs from its front-mounted electric motor - 126kW and 250Nm. Yes, even the GT.

What the GT does have over at least the base model is a larger battery shared with the Long Range and Ultra variants, but despite having the same weights and outputs, the GT is, on paper, claimed to be a tenth of a second slower to 100km/h than the rest of the range: 8.5 seconds versus 8.4sec for the cheaper models.

There are two drivetrains on offer here - one shared across the Pro+ and Premium, and another delivering the prodigious power of the #1 Brabus.

The first shared option is a single rear motor that delivers 200kW and 343Nm, which is enough to knock off the sprint to 100km/h in 6.7 seconds. Top speed for all models is listed as 180km/h.

The Brabus, though, adds a motor at the front axle, giving it AWD, which ups the outputs to a punchy 315kW and 543Nm, dropping the sprint to 100km/h to a very fast-feeling 3.9 seconds.

It’s a single-speed EV transmission in each, which means smooth, constant power delivery with no traditional ‘steps’, and all get 'Eco', 'Normal' and 'Sport' drive modes, though the only thing they impact is the accelerator response.

You can add weight to the steering, but that’s a separate item accessed elsewhere in the screen’s sub-menus.

That aforementioned larger battery is a 63kWh lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery, over the 48kWh unit in the Standard Range base variant.

According to GWM’s brochure, the GT’s electric driving range under WLTP is 400km, 20km less than the Long Range and Ultra (and like the acceleration time, for no obvious reason).

With a 400km claimed range and 63kWh battery, the Ora GT should return a power consumption figure of around 15.75kWh/100km, though on test we saw 16.4kWh.

GWM claims charging with 11kWh AC power will take 6.5 hours to jump from 10 to 80 per cent charge, while 80kW DC charging takes 50 minutes to do the same.

All Smart #1 models share the same 66kWh battery, but how far you can travel between charges comes down to the trim you choose, with the WLTP driving range either 400km, 420km or 440km. The Brabus, of course, covers the least ground between charges, owing to its dual-motor set-up and amped up power outputs. 

When it comes time to plug in, all models are equipped with 150kW DC fast-charging capability, and when plugged into said charger, you can expect to go from zero to 80 per cent charged in less than 30 minutes. 

There’s also 22kW AC charging on board in the Premium and Brabus models, which means you can use three-phase power, but plugged into a regular 7.4kWh home wallbox should see you go from zero to 80 per cent charged in 7.5 hours, which means overnight charging should work a treat.

As is the case with the GT’s outputs and features, there’s nothing to suggest the GT would be fundamentally better to drive than any other variant. Unless all those kids at school were right about red bits making cars go faster.

The Ora’s front-drive layout paired with relatively immediate electric torque delivery, however, means you probably wouldn’t want it to be much more powerful with this particular mechanical setup.

The Ora, as a city car, does its job reasonably well in standard drive modes, though its sport mode is possibly a little too eager for day-to-day affairs - and the way it quite conservatively understeers on corners suggests there’s not much ‘sport’ driving to be done in this cute EV.

The steering itself feels fairly numb (again, fine day-to-day) and becomes heavier or lighter in different drive modes, but with no real advantage - the wheel itself is also a little on the large side.

Its suspension tune is comfortable enough for the low-speed streets on which this car is likely to find itself most often, where most city cars aren’t exactly riding on clouds, though can more obviously start to feel a little underdone on rougher roads at high speed.

It’s not a light car, after all, a hatchback that weighs 1580kg and has a short wheelbase isn’t going to be a dynamic masterpiece, though it does at least feel stable enough through corners thanks to its low centre of gravity.

It’s not going to encourage any heroic driving, but it’s also more likely to deter rather than outright punish any silly behaviour behind the wheel.

The #1 and its sister car, the #3, might share powertrains and batteries, but they are designed to drive very differently. The #3 is the sporty one (always code for a firmer ride), while the #1 is supposed to be softer, more comfortable and more city-friendly.

That’s the theory, at least. In practice, I have no idea. My time behind the wheel of the #1 was limited to its most fire-breathing model — the Brabus, which also scores its own suspension components — and soft is not a word that comes to mind once you’re strapped in behind its bright red seatbelt.

It begins with those bonkers power outputs, 315kW and 543Nm, which deliver genuine push-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration every time you stand on the go pedal.

Better still (well, I think so, at least), is that activating its sportiest 'Brabus' mode also unlocks a deep Abarth-style burbling soundtrack that rises and falls with your inputs.

But like most performance EVs, you can also dial the drive experience right back. In its softer drive modes the #1 Brabus feels calm and comfortable and not overly reactive, which makes sense, given the only thing the Brabus mode changes is accelerator sensitivity.

The result, though, is a car that you can tootle around in silently when you want to but hides a nuclear weapon under your right foot when you want to unleash that part of its personality. 

Downsides? It’s got plenty of point-and-shoot power, but in the few corners we managed to find in it, it didn’t quite live up to the all-out-performance badge. There’s a bit too much movement in the body — a symptom of its near-2.0-tonne weight — and it doesn’t feel entirely engaging.

A couple of important caveats, though. We didn’t get long behind the wheel of the #1, and the dull-as-dishwater prescribed drive program revealed little about its true performance potential. So, we’ll have to wait until the model is properly through the CarsGuide garage to give you a deeper dive on this one.

Full credit to Smart on this one, because the #1 comes with a pretty stacked active (crash avoidance) safety tech list, and though our test drive was far from exhaustive, only the speed limit warning (which you can switch off) felt overly intrusive, with the rest just sort of humming away in the background.

The full package includes things like adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, traffic-sign recognition and the aforementioned speed limit warning. There’s also AEB, along with seven airbags, all of which has earned the #1 a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating.

GWM offers a seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, as well as an eight-year/unlimited kilometre battery warranty. The former is quite decent for the industry, the latter relatively par when it comes to battery warranties.

Five years or 150,000km of roadside assistance is also included.

The Ora’s first five services, each coming in at 12 month/15,000km intervals, are capped price, all at $99.

Warranty is a definite soft spot, with LSH Auto offering five years or 150,000km, whichever comes first. For reference, other Chinese newcomers include Chery (seven years) BYD (six years) and GWM (seven years), while MG has just shifted to a 10-year warranty.

Still, service intervals are 12 months/20,000km, and you should be able to take your Smart to any LSH Auto Mercedes dealership (in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) or either of the Smart dealerships in Sydney or Brisbane.

Service cost for the first four years averages $611 per workshop visit for the Pro+ and Premium (worth noting the fourth service is a big one) and $780 for the Brabus. Not particularly small numbers.