From selling over 10,000 units per month to 2,000 units per month, can a new leader boost the sales of Great Wall Ora?

Recently, Ora, a brand under Great Wall Motors, announced a leadership change. Lü Wenbin succeeded Zhao Yongpo as the general manager of the Ora brand. His resume shows that Lü Wenbin has a technical background. He previously served as the technical general manager of the Haval brand and collaborated with Zhao Yongpo to create best - selling models such as the Haval Dargo.

With the monthly sales of the Ora brand dropping from over 10,000 at its peak to the current 2,000, can Lü Wenbin, with his technical background, lead the Ora brand back to its peak?

A former pioneer in domestic new energy vehicles with continuously declining sales

In terms of development time, the Ora brand can be regarded as one of the pioneers in domestic new energy vehicles.

A key turning point in the domestic new energy vehicle market was in 2008. In this year, BYD launched its first pure - electric sedan, the F3DM, while Great Wall Motors unveiled a two - seat pure - electric new energy concept car, the Great Wall Ora, at the Beijing Auto Show.

Ten years later, in August 2018, the Ora brand was officially established. It was the first independent new energy brand among mainstream domestic automakers at that time. Its first model, the Ora iQ, was launched at the Chengdu Auto Show, followed by the release of the Ora R1, which later became the very popular Ora Black Cat model.

The Ora Black Cat had relatively prominent advantages at that time. Most other domestic models at that time were "converted from gasoline - powered vehicles", while the Ora Black Cat was based on the first dedicated electric vehicle platform in China, the ME platform.

Meanwhile, the Ora Black Cat not only had high - level appearance but also had a cruising range of over 300 kilometers. At the beginning of its launch, the post - subsidy price range was between 59,800 yuan and 77,800 yuan, with a very high cost - performance ratio.

Subsequently, in July and November 2020, the Ora White Cat and Ora Good Cat were officially launched. In March 2021, the brand positioning of Ora was changed to "a car brand that loves women more".

Looking back, Ora has caught at least three trends. One is the explosion of the micro - car market, including A00 and A0 models. To this day, models such as the Geely Galaxy L6, Dolphin, Seagull, and Wuling Bingo still have very outstanding sales performance. The second is the high - value design. The third is the demand of female car consumers. The latter two are also among the important reasons for the success of the Xiaomi SU7.

With features such as high - value appearance, long cruising range, and high cost - performance ratio, in the then new energy vehicle market dominated by ride - hailing cars, the Ora brand targeting the C - end market had sales approaching 40,000 in 2019.

Since the second half of 2020, the C - end market for new energy vehicles has exploded. Coupled with the launch of the White Cat and Good Cat, the annual sales in 2021 reached as high as 135,000, with the monthly average sales exceeding 10,000. Among them, the Black Cat was the absolute mainstay, and there was even an excellent performance of over 10,000 units in a single month.

However, such a glorious performance did not last long. At the end of 2021, due to fluctuations in the global supply chain, the automotive industry faced a "chip shortage". The Ora brand was complained about by car owners because of the "chip replacement" issue.

The reason for this complaint was that car owners found that "it was advertised that the entertainment system of the Ora Good Cat's host used the latest Qualcomm 8 - core high - performance chip, but in fact, the central processor of the host used the old - model Intel 4 - core A3940 chip released in 2016."

Subsequently, Great Wall Motors responded that the Ora Good Cat's in - vehicle system had indeed not been equipped with the Qualcomm 8 - core chip. This "chip replacement" incident had a certain negative impact on the Ora brand.

Immediately afterwards, due to the sharp increase in the price of battery raw materials, the "chip shortage" in the industry escalated into a situation of "shortage of chips and batteries". At the beginning of 2022, the Ora brand made a decision that shocked the industry: to stop accepting orders for the Black Cat and White Cat models.

According to the official notice, the reason for stopping accepting orders was, on the one hand, that there were too many orders, and the delivery of new orders would have to wait until the second half of 2022. On the other hand, due to the "shortage of chips and batteries" in the automotive industry and the rising price of raw materials, "taking the Black Cat as an example, after the sharp increase in raw material prices in 2022, the loss per unit of the Black Cat exceeded 10,000 yuan."

The Black Cat and White Cat were the only two models under the Ora brand with a price of less than 100,000 yuan and were also the main sales force. After stopping accepting orders, the sales of the Ora brand declined from its peak. The sales in 2022 - 2024 were 104,000, 108,500, and 63,300 respectively.

Since the beginning of this year, the decline in the sales of the Ora brand has further widened. In the first five months, the cumulative sales of Ora were only 10,600, a year - on - year decrease of 58.69%. It was the brand with the largest decline among Great Wall's brands, with an average monthly sales of only about 2,000.

Under such circumstances, Lü Wenbin took over as the general manager of the Ora brand.

Can Ora achieve a sales explosion with a Haval executive with a junior college degree taking over?

Since its establishment seven years ago, the position of the general manager of the Ora brand has changed several times. Ning Shuyong, the first general manager of the Ora brand, led the development of the Ora R1 model and left in July 2020.

In March 2021, Dong Yudong, a veteran of the Haval brand, took over as the general manager of the Ora brand. During the eight - month period between the two general managers, the position of the general manager of the Ora brand was vacant.

At the end of 2022, the Ora and Salon brands were merged. Wen Fei, the former general manager of the Salon brand, served as the general manager of both the Ora and Salon brands, while Dong Yudong served as the technical general manager of the two brands. However, in May 2023, Wen Fei left Great Wall Motors, and Dong Yudong served as the general manager of the Ora brand again. In May this year, Zhao Yongpo, the general manager of the Haval brand, concurrently served as the general manager of Ora until Lü Wenbin took over this time.

It is understood that Lü Wenbin is a veteran of Great Wall Motors. He graduated from the Department of Automobile and Tractor Manufacturing and Maintenance of Henan Mechanical and Electrical Engineering College in 2004 and then joined Great Wall Motors. He has served as the product director of Great Wall pick - up trucks and other positions. In 2020, he was promoted to the technical general manager of the Haval brand and belongs to the technical management talent.

According to a Weibo post by Zhao Yongpo, the general manager of the Haval brand, he and Lü Wenbin collaborated to create models such as the Haval Raptor, the second - generation Haval H9, and the Haval Dargo in Haval. Among them, the Haval Dargo is currently the model with the highest sales in the Haval brand.

In the Weibo post announcing his assumption of office, Lü Wenbin announced that the Ora brand would be upgraded and refreshed, continuously optimize the product lineup, and improve the user experience. He also announced the official launch of the 2025 Ora Good Cat.

Judging from the current models under Ora, product improvement is indeed a shortcoming that Ora needs to address. After the Black and White Cats and the Good Cat, Ora has successively launched three new models: the Good Cat GT, the Ballet Cat, and the Lightning Cat. However, it has been nearly three years since the launch of the Ora Lightning Cat in October 2022, and Ora has not launched new models, only making iterative upgrades to existing models.

Currently, except for the Ora Good Cat, the sales of the Ballet Cat and the Lightning Cat are relatively low. According to Yiche.com, from January to May this year, the cumulative sales of the Ora Good Cat were 4,945, while the sales of the Ballet Cat and the Lightning Cat were 165 and 132 respectively.

The starting prices of the three currently available models of the Ora brand all exceed 100,000 yuan, and the starting price of the Lightning Cat even exceeds 180,000 yuan.

The 2025 Ora Good Cat, which is about to be launched, has made significant price adjustments. Currently, the official price of the 2025 Ora Good Cat has not been announced, but the previously announced pre - sale price starts at 89,800 yuan, a reduction of 16,000 yuan compared with the starting price of the old - model Good Cat. The effect of the price reduction on the sales of Ora remains to be verified.

In addition to new products, according to Zhao Yongpo's Weibo, Ora will still be the focus of Great Wall's global layout. In this regard, globalization will still be an important development direction for Ora and Lü Wenbin.

In the past few years, the domestic sales of Ora have declined to a certain extent, but its overseas sales performance has been relatively outstanding.

According to the Weibo account "Electric Vehicles Going Global", in 2024, the sales of Ora in 15 overseas countries reached 18,000, a year - on - year increase of 10%. It was also one of the best - selling independent new - energy brands overseas. Considering that Ora's total sales in 2024 were 63,300, the proportion of overseas sales was already close to 30%.

Since the beginning of this year, the overseas sales of Great Wall Motors have declined. In the first five months, the cumulative overseas sales were 157,600, while the overseas sales in the same period last year were 163,400, a year - on - year decrease of 3.55%. Under such circumstances, whether the overseas sales of the Ora brand can maintain growth remains to be verified with more data.

Overall, Ora has undergone many changes since the beginning of this year. After the new brand general manager, Lü Wenbin, took over, whether he can lead the Ora brand to achieve a sales explosion and drive the sales to resume growth, Chidu Business will continue to pay attention.

This article is from the WeChat public account “Delin Society” (ID: delinshe). Author: Dong Wuying. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.