Shanghai (ZXZC)- Great Wall Motor (GWM) saw its Taizhou manufacturing base's first PT (prototype) vehicle roll off the production line on September 1, indicating that the Taizhou plant has fully advanced into the production trial stage, according to a posting on GWM's WeChat account.

The PT vehicle coming off the assembly line is ORA Haomao (known as “Haomao” in Chinese), the fourth model of GWM BEV-focused brand ORA. The all-electric model made its debut at the Chengdu Motor Show kicking off in late July, and is anticipated to hit the market in October.

The Haomao measures 4,235mm long, 1,825mm wide and 1,596mm tall with a wheelbase spanning 2,650mm. Powering the vehicle is an electric motor offered by UAES, paired with a ternary-lithium battery pack made by SVOLT Energy Technology Co., Ltd.

GWM began the construction of its Taizhou base in November 2019. The birth of the first PT vehicle signifies that the plant is moving into a sprint phase to the volume production.

As GWM's eighth domestic manufacturing base, the Taizhou base involves an investment of 8 billion yuan ($1,169,881,360) and covers an area of 1173 mu (782,000 square meters). Upon completion of the construction, it will primarily produce the Haval-branded vehicles boasting core product competitiveness and GWM's NEVs, said the automaker. The volume production is expected to kick off next month.

GWM said the Taizhou plant will play an important role in GWM strategic deployment designed to make a bridge between the south and the north of China.

GWM has been perfecting its global production deployment in recent years. In the second half of 2019, the automaker's Tula factory in Russia and Yongchuan plant in Chongqing were successively put into production, and the company also started building the complete vehicle production bases in Pinghu and Taizhou. At the beginning of this year, GWM acquired General Motors' plants in Rayong of Tailand and Talegaon of India (photo source: GWM's WeChat account).