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ORA Good Cat EV Officially Launched in Malaysia, Priced From RM139,800

With the previous government having allowed full tax exemption on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) for a few years, many companies have been quickly introducing new BEV models in the market this year. A number of them are from China, which has the largest EV market in the world, so we are seeing many new brands and models which have unusual names as well.

ORA is one of those new brands and though the brand is new, the brand owner is not. It is a BEV-dedicated brand of Great Wall Motors (GWM), the leading truck and SUV manufacturer in China. GWM is not new to Malaysia as their Haval models have been on sale over the past 10 years, marketed by a local company. In order to more effectively invest and manage their business here, they have established a subsidiary company which will handle distribution and marketing.

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Weismann Reveals Technical Details Of Project Thunderball

Weismann, a German luxury carmaker, was around as far back as 1988 but did not have much visibility. After disappearing for a while due to financial problems, it reappeared in 2016 and announced a plan to develop new models.

The first of these models, which has ‘Project Thunderball’ as its codename, will the world’s first fully electric convertible roadster. A prototype was revealed in May this year, showing much of the exterior and interior design. But technical details were brief, with the company saying that it will have a ‘highly engineered electric powertrain providing breath-taking performance’.

Weismann has now made further progress in the car’s development and has validated the various systems to be confident to talk about them. The 2-seater rear-wheel drive will have twin rear-mid mounted electric motors delivering up to 500 kW (680 ps) and 1,100 Nm of torque, with claimed 0 to 100 km/h time of 2.9 seconds.

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Abarth Starts Electrification Journey With New 500e

Abarth, part of the Stellantis Group, was originally the performance brand of Fiat, which had acquired the company in 1971. From then on, the company (which was established in 1949) adapted Fiat models to be higher performance variants which were sold under its own brand name. An exception was the 124 Spider produced between 2015 and 2019.which was adapted from the 4^th generation Mazda MX-5.

Like AMG and M GmbH, the performance brands of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Abarth has also to start its electrification journey as the auto industry as a whole has committed towards carbon neutrality over the next few decades. Even companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini have been forced to start switching to zero emissions powertrains whether they like to or not.

With the new 500e, Abarth offers its first battery electric vehicle (BEV) which is adapted from the Fiat 500e which went on sale in early 2020. However, being a performance brand, Abarth has not just taken the Fiat model and out on its badge, which is characterized by a scorpion. Just as Porsche and BMW M made sure that their electric models have high performance worthy of their badges, Abarth has also given its version an extra measure of performance.

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Mazda Announces 1.5 Trillion Yen 3-Phase Plan For Electrification Of Model Range

As Mazda Motor Corporation continues its progress after the challenging COVID-19 pandemic years, it has updated its mid-term management plan and management policy up to 2030. And despite the highly uncertain business environment, the carmaker is renewing its commitment to achieving carbon neutrality in all its operations by 2050.

In recent years, the environment in which the auto industry operates has changed dramatically, particularly in Europe, with the growth of electrified products and the associated regulatory demands. To be able to flexibly respond to these future changes, Mazda has a 3-phase plan which will see it spending up to 1.5 trillion yen (around RM48,600,000,000) during this decade.

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Pininfarina Battista Electric Hypercar Sets Record-Breaking Times At Nardo (w/VIDEO)

The switch to electric powertrains has seen a sudden leap in the power and torque available to propel cars. Unlike internal combustion engines, electric motors generate power in an entirely different way, with a huge amount of peak torque available from almost standstill.

So impressive new performance numbers are beginning to appear and new records are being set by this new generation of cars. Every month, some company will announce a sub-5-second time and sometimes it is recognised as a world record as well.

Pininfarina’s Battista electric hypercar, the most powerful car designed and built in Italy, has an output of 1,900 ps/2,340 Nm and it has achieved sizzling times for 4 different acceleration runs. They were 0 – 60 mph in 1.79 seconds; 0 – 100 km/h in 1.86 seconds, 0 – 120 mph in 4.49 seconds; and 0 – 200 km/h in 4.79 seconds.

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Toyota bZ Compact SUV Concept To Go ‘beyond Zero’

Toyota, it seems, is eager to show the world that even though it will continue to offer mobility solutions that include combustion engines, it is also giving a lot of attention to developing new battery electric (BEV) models. Behind the scenes, there must be a lot of R&D going on and at the end of last year, Akio Toyoda showed no less than 17 prototype BEV Toyota and Lexus models.

Since then, the company has been rolling out new models to show that it is making rapid progress and will have a growing range of BEVs in the near future. This will soon include a model that is presently known as the bZ Compact SUV concept. It looks production-ready so expect it to be on sale sometime in 2023.

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Lunaz Begins Work On Most Complex Electric Range Rovers

Following the announcement a year ago that Lunaz Design was taking orders for its first batch of classic electric Range Rovers, demand has been growing and now accounts for 45% of the marque’s total production. The orders are for two configurations – ‘Town’, which focuses on rear seat and driver comfort, and ‘Country’, which incorporates engineering features that enable ‘better-than-new’ off-roading capability – which will be made in a 70:30.

The company says that the first two units are the most complex Range Rover builds ever undertaken by Lunaz Design. The first is a Long Wheelbase variant in ‘Town’ configuration and the second is a fully open Safari model – the same type that featured in the James Bond film, Octopussy – in ‘Country’ specification.

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AEHRA Aims For The Ultra Premium Car Market With Electric SUV

In the early part of the 20^th century, many car companies were formed to make and sell the new ‘horseless carriages’. But over time, it was a case of Charles Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ which applied to businesses as much as nature. By the end of the century, the number was considerably less than when it started and mega corporations were formed as a few companies merged.

Now, in the 21^st century, the same thing is happening again as a ‘new’ type of motor vehicle – the electric vehicle (EV) – is poised to move into the mainstream – even displacing combustion engined vehicles in another few decades. And again, we see many new companies or start-ups appearing to try to get even a tiny slice of the growing EV market.

Some have been around a few years already, quietly developing their models and approaching investors and now, it seems that many are beginning to reveal themselves and present their products. One of them is AEHRA, an Italian company that aims to ‘disrupt the existing automotive ecosystem by distilling the values of Italian design, world-class engineering and American customer service to leverage the advantages of next-generation EV powertrain packaging and technology’.

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New Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 To Race In Season 9 Of Formula E

The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team will enter its fourth year in the all-electric Formula E single-seater World Championship from the 2023 season, running a Porsche 99X Electric Gen3. Seven automakers have registered to race the new Gen3 in Season 9. They are DS Automobiles, Jaguar, Mahindra, Maserati, NIO, Nissan and Porsche.

This third generation of racing cars will be the fastest, lightest, most powerful and efficient electric racing cars ever built. The intention behind the development of the new Gen3 cars is to set new benchmarks in motorsport in terms of performance, efficiency and sustainability – the goal of the FIA and the Formula E organization.

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EX90 – Volvo’s New Flagship Electric SUV

20 years after Volvo introduced its first SUV, the Swedish carmaker begins a new era with a totally new SUV that takes it into a fully electric future. Unveiled today in Sweden, the new EX90 is the first of a series of models that will enter the market at the rate of one per year. Volvo has declared that by 2030, it will sell only zero emission electric vehicles – one of the most ambitious electrification blueprints in the automotive industry.

“The Volvo EX90 is a statement for where we are, and where we are going,” said Jim Rowan, Volvo’s CEO. “It’s fully electric with a range of up to 600 kilometres on a single charge, designed to further raise our safety standards, the first Volvo car to be truly defined by its software and part of a wider ecosystem, connecting to your home and your other devices. The Volvo EX90 is the start of something new for Volvo Cars in many ways.”

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