This is the new Weltmeister EX5, an electric SUV for
China. The EX5 will be launched on the Chinese car market in April next year.
Weltmeister is a new Chinese EV brand, owned by a company called WM Motors.
Weltmeister is an odd name for a car maker, it means world champion, in German.
The company launched in 2016, and became famous overnight because of a
Photoshop scandal. But the real car looks rather good, so we can forget about
that little misstep now, right? Right.
The Chinese name is Weima (威马). It too has a W and an M but the meaning is rather different; Weima
means powerful horse. WM Motors was founded by Freeman Shen, a former hot shot
executive of Geely. His co-founder calls himself Napoleon.
It looks smooth and modern, like a 2018 SUV should.
That is a good thing, and a bad; it is almost too similar to any other SUV,
there isn’t any daring or any special, and that in turn makes it hard for the
EX5 to stand out in an increasingly crowded market.
Annoyingly, Weltmeister didn’t disclose any new
information about the car. They repeated it will cost about 200.000 yuan and
that it will have a range of 600 kilometers. They also said the EX5 will be
connected to the cloud 24/7 and that it will have autonomous safety systems.
Party trick is a cloud-based “Super ID Account”
which allows the owner to access the car
by face-recognition by a camera in the B-pillar. The driver’s window doubles as
a screen, when the owner approaches the vehicle, he will be greeted with a
welcome message, aalong with vital information such as the level of the
batteries.
Currently, the longest-range Chinese electric cars
go around 300 kilometers on one charge, with many car makers developing
vehicles that will hit 400. Weltmeister claims 600 kilometers, an absolute
incredible number, if true. The company didn’t release any details about their
power train or battery pack.
