PHEV with impressive electric range
It took a while, but the Chinese Great Wall Motors (GWM) seem to have finally decided which Wey model will come to Europe first. That is the Wey 03, which we previously knew as Latte and – very briefly – as Coffee 02. Yes.
Great Walls luxury brand Wey already had a stand at the IAA in – then – Frankfurt in 2019, so the brand has been working on its European plans for some time. However, such a big step does not happen overnight, but in the intervening period it has been very quiet around Wey. We imagine that the brand only came to concrete decisions when the coffee in the meeting room there in China finally ran out. The Wey 03 is called the ‘Wey Latte’ there and we were served it in 2021, then in Munich, as Wey Coffee 02. Apparently that coffee stuff has now been completely abandoned and the car for the European market is officially called ‘Wey 03’. Or ‘GWM Wey 03’, with the name of parent company Great Wall Motors added, although Wey is indeed presented as a brand and also has its own logo.
Wey is even a premium brand, or so it says itself. To look at, the Wey 03 is a neat, but quite interchangeable SUV. It is just 4.70 meters long, 1.73 meters high and has a wheelbase of 2.75 meters. That makes it comparable to cars like the BMW X3 and Mercedes GLC. It is refreshing that the Wey 03 is not an EV, but a plug-in hybrid. In the nose is a 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbo petrol engine with 204 hp, which works with a nine-speed automatic transmission. In the front-wheel drive version, the system power together with the electric motor is 367 hp, but the also available AWD version goes a step further. This version produces no less than 442 hp, with a healthy torque of 685 Nm. As a result, the car sprints from 0 to 100 in 5.3 seconds and can accelerate to 230 km/h if desired.
The electric driving range is also impressive. The 34 kWh battery pack is very large for a plug-in and, according to Wey, results in a range of 136 kilometers. According to Way, theoretical CO2 emissions are only 15 grams per kilometer according to WLTP standards. That undoubtedly makes it very attractive from a BPM technical point of view, at least for the time being.
Wey is aiming for a European starting price of somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 euros for the Wey 03, but that does not say everything about a possible Dutch price. In any case, nothing is yet known about Wey’s arrival in the Netherlands. Great Wall is already working cautiously in Europe with Wey and Ora, but is not doing so here yet.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl