GWM ORA 03 review

The 03 is happiest in town. You sit fairly high up thanks to the battery’s position under the floor and there’s good all-round visibility out of the big windows. It’s not quick – a 169bhp motor drives the front wheels for a 0-62mph time of 8.3 seconds – but because of the instant torque on offer it does at least feel a little sprightly up to around 30mph.

Traction control isn’t the greatest: bury the throttle and you can make the wheels chirrup at 35mph, even on a dry road. The eco-spec Giti tyres might be to blame for that. Hmm.

The steering has three settings for varying degrees of weight, but all are fairly light and make it easy to manoeuvre. There’s a number of settings to change the amount of regenerative braking you’re getting too, plus a proper one-pedal mode so that you rarely need to hit the actual brake pedal.

What about if I want to leave the city limits?

Ah, here’s where things get a little bit tricky for the 03. Motorways aren’t its favourite habitat, with range and efficiency dropping markedly and the active safety systems getting far too involved for our liking. They’re the reason that the 03 gets a five-star Euro NCAP score, but we’ve found them too intrusive with the lane assist even dragging the car back into the main carriageway when trying to indicate and exit down a slip road. Plus turning it all off requires a proper deep dive into the touchscreen every time you start the car.

There’s plenty of wind and road noise up at motorway speeds too, particularly from those bulbous wing mirrors.

Is it as fun as a Mini on country lanes?

Although the platform bears some relation to that of the Mini Cooper Electric, sadly the 03 doesn’t drive like one. The suspension is firm and crashy, and yet there’s still an alarming lack of body control if you really throw it into a corner. There’s also no real communication through the steering wheel as to what the front wheels are doing.

We weren’t massively enamoured by the feel from the brake pedal either, but then this is a city car from a very new carmaker so we shouldn’t be too disappointed that it doesn’t drive like an apex-hunting sports car. 

What’s the range like?

A mixed bag. In the 48kWh car we found real-world range to be around 150 miles, and less than that if more motorway driving is involved. Not ideal. The 63kWh Pro+ promises 260 but we saw efficiency of 3.6mi/kWh, which suggests more like 230 miles if you avoid fast roads and it’s not absolutely freezing outside. Seen better, seen worse.