WM Motor. Future electric vehicle champion of the world
China has recently experienced an electric vehicle boom. Electric vehicle manufacturers appear almost every day, but not all of them even make it to the first concept car. Chinese startup WM Motor, headquartered in Shanghai, made a strong statement early in its life, clearly claiming leadership and great success. The future electric vehicle champion of the world that aims to conquer the mass market has announced the billion-dollar financing to launch its first electric vehicle, and released its first electric EX5 SUV in 2018.
The company name WM is derived from the German word Weltmeister, which means "world champion". This word has become part of the logo of the brand, which intends to enter the American market. The Weltmeister brand logo consists of five stripes symbolizing a person, a car and so on, surrounded by a square frame.
Today, the company operates a factory with a full production capacity of 100,000 vehicles per year. In addition to the head office in Shanghai, WM Motor has a technical center in Germany, as well as divisions in Beijing and Chengdu. About 70% of specialists deal with actual electric vehicles, and the remaining 30% work on Internet services.
Models
Weltmeister offers the W series (World series), which includes the EX5-Z compact SUV with a length of 4.5 meters, the EX6 Plus SUV and the W6 with a length 4.6 meters. The first-born of the M (Master series) and E (affordable series) series debuted in 2021, but their sales will begin in 2022. The large E5 sedan opens the E series, and the Maven show car, presented in 2020, transformed into the M7 sedan, giving rise to the M series. The Weltmeister M7 4-door car will be the flagship model with three lidars. Positioned as a full-size all-electric sedan, WM Motor’s M7 is 4,930 mm long and has a wheelbase of 2,918 mm. It is equipped with LiDAR units to support smart driving functions and promises users safe and highly efficient smart mobility. According to the manufacturer, other Weltmeister models will be equipped with a high-precision autonomous parking system PAVP, which will replace the current AVP, and the manufacturer will take responsibility for an accident in unmanned mode.
Origins
The company was founded in 2015 by Freeman Shen (aka Shen Hui), a former senior executive of Volvo and Geely with 22 years of industry experience (his service record includes BorgWarner and Fiat Chrysler). Shen immediately outlined the company’s priorities: “We don”t make luxury cars. But we will have a luxurious quality’. Freeman believes that building a ‘reliable, high-quality, reasonably priced Fiat 500 is much more difficult than building a Ferrari by hand’. He dreams of ‘making a real mass product, not a luxury toy for the rich’. Its goal is a mass-produced electric car with a price tag of around 35,000 dollars or even less.
‘I dream of making a real mass product, not a luxury toy for the rich’
To realize his big project, Freeman assembled a team of specialists who understand the production organization and work with suppliers. The technical part (batteries, motors and electronics) is designed by German engineers. Component suppliers include Bosch and Siemens, as well as a dozen Chinese companies such as Huawei. The Chinese are looking for a corporate identity. After studying at the British universities of Durham and Coventry, Sam Sun, design director of WM Motor gained experience at Volkswagen, Bentley and Roewe. WM Motor intends to sell electric vehicles primarily via the Internet, with a minimum number of showrooms. The first market was, of course, China. Next, Shen intends to enter the US market.
At the moment, WM Motor’s growth rate is far behind other young Chinese manufacturers, and its own factory with a capacity of 100,000 vehicles is not yet productive enough. It is possible that in the near future the manufacturer will have to sell itself to a large company, which will be able to establish a more stable production of new products. But for now everything is going well. And the new Chinese company will always be world champion in electric vehicles.
