Great Wall Motor, the maker of Haval SUVs and pickup trucks, unveiled its new energy vehicle strategy Friday evening, pledging to double down on plug-in hybrid electric technology and becoming the latest traditional Chinese auto company to play catchup as the shift toward cleaner cars accelerates.
The Chinese carmaker said its new technology can bring the fuel efficiency of a two-wheel drive to its four-wheel SUVs. It does that by placing one motor at the front of the car and one at the back, and employing intelligent torque control.
For the so-called Hi4 technology, “H represents hybrid, i for intelligent, while 4 means 4 wheel drive,” the company said in a statement. “All EVs of Great Wall brand will carry the 4WD tech in 2024, while in future the company intends to make it open source.”
The realignment comes as Great Wall posted a 17% sales decline in 2022, the first time a drop has occurred since 2018.
Its lineup is light on electric cars, barring the compact ORA pure EV range, and sales of even those models dropped 23%. That in a year when China NEV sales almost doubled to 6.5 million units.
Great Wall has since lowered its sales forecast for 2023 from 2.8 million units to 1.6 million.
Preliminary net income for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 should come in at 8.3 billion yuan (R23 billion), the company said in February, missing the market’s expectations for around 10.1 billion yuan (R28 billion).
Makers of internal combustion engine cars are facing a tough time in China, where EV sales now account for about one in every four new vehicles sold.
Sales of ICE autos dropped 13% in 2022 while battery EV sales rose 74% and plug-in hybrids surged around 160%, according to China’s Passenger Car Association.
Provincial governments and several carmakers have started to offer steep discounts to consumers to clear ICE stock.
In the same event, Great Wall also announced an unusual move of offering awards of up to 10 million yuan (R27.5 billion) for people that report internet trolls. It said the program will help return peace to the auto industry and rational competition among peers.
Great Wall’s shift follows that of another large Chinese automaker, Zhejiang Geely.
It unveiled a new high-end line of electric cars last month as part of a push to make up lost ground to Tesla, which makes around 70,000 EVs a month from its factory in Shanghai, and local powerhouse BYD.
Geely, one of China’s largest private automakers, already had a suite of electric vehicle brands, however, including pure battery premium line Zeekr, which it launched in 2021.
Keyword: GWM is doubling down on plug-in hybrids