Coinciding with Auto Shanghai 2023, Great Wall Motor (GWM) took the opportunity during the motor show to welcome over 300 members of the media and distributor representatives from over 60 countries to its R&D Centre in Baoding, China.
The reason behind the trip was to share more regarding its Forest Ecosystem as well as the innovative new vehicles the automaker will be rolling out under its various brands.
GWM included stops at its hydrogen energy R&D centre, wind tunnel and NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) laboratories, among other facilities during the tour of the centre. The GWM technical team were on hand as well and more than keen to engage in discussion regarding the new technology, testing and design of their vehicles.
All the distributors expressed anticipation regarding the brand’s direction and the new energy vehicles around the corner.
“Here I experienced GWM’s unremitting commitment to technology and quality, and the numerous advanced new energy technologies were also impressive. We hope to increase the order volume of GWM’s NEVs in the future,” enthused one of their European distributors.
Taking the lead during the tour was GWM’s technical head, who explained the centre’s layout and the entire development process from the round-up in producing a vehicle that adhered to GWMs belief in the R&D concept of taking “precise input in pursuit of industry leadership.”
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The centre itself spans an area of 250,000 m², consuming investments in the region of 5 billion Yuan (~RM 3.2 billion). Everything that goes into designing a brand new vehicle can be done at the centre, seeing the complete process of product development, with facilities for product R&D, styling, engineering design, product trial production and testing as well as additional engineering areas to support the various processes.
Over in the NEV field, GWM possessed 1,966 patent disclosures and 1,650 patent authorisations with a year-on-year increase of 51.11 percent and 80.53 percent respectively. In 2022, GWM’s R&D investment increased by 34.34 percent to 12.18 million Yuan (~RM 7.8 million).
The culmination of the R&D centre saw GWM’s first Hi4 (Hybrid Intelligent 4WD) model make its global debut at Auto Shanghai 2023.
Serving as the foundation for the process behind vehicle design is the Forest Ecosystem layout that integrates new energy, intelligence and other related technological industries to form an ecosystem for continuous evolution.
This encompasses GWM’s full-value chain layout of “solar energy battery–hydrogen energy–vehicle power” in NEVs and strengthening the technical reserves such as intelligent driving, intelligent services as well as intelligent cockpits to compete in the era of intelligent NEVs.
Moving forward, GWM will continue to innovate and provide driving forces for its new energy and intelligent strategic transformation with the Forest Ecosystem serving as the platform for consumers to experience extraordinary power, lower carbon and environmental friendliness in their motoring.
Source: GWM catalyses new energy advancements by leveraging on Forest Ecosystem