Ora Punk Cat Is a Ciplak Electric VW Beetle, But We Like It

But that’s okay….Since Volkswagen themselves don’t seem interested in carrying on the Beetle nameplate and ended production of the final units in July 2019, we can assume that it won’t officially return anytime soon as an EV.

That’s what Ora is betting on, perhaps. That, and the fact that it would be mighty difficult for the German automaker to really pursue them for copyright infringement or intellectual property theft given how nonchalant China has been with such matters, with copycat items of nearly everything under the sun being produced within borders, and sold beyond it.

We’ve already seen their other, more traditionally styled compact hatch called the Good Cat, which is also an EV, and this car continues the feline naming convention. Here, they’ve taken more inspiration from the original Beetle than the more modern Golf-based 3rd-generation version.

We're not even going to get into talking about why it's called the 'Punk Cat', but at least that's a much more interesting name than, say, the '001' by Geely-owned Zeekr. What we love most about this car is its rejection of conventional EV styling. While other electric cars are falling over themselves trying to look the most futuristic and sci-fi, the Punk Cat goes in the totally opposite direction.

Things kick off with a two-tone exterior - white on green in this instance - as well as chrome bumpers. What’s not faithful to the Beetle are its rear doors with the original VW being only sold as a two-door hatch.

Inside, the colour combo is carried over to match, but here there are accents of dark pink on the very retro-styled cabin, complete with a single-dial cluster and thin but big diameter steering wheel. A huge touchscreen is perched over the dashboard, a jarring reminder of the times.

Chinese EV brand Ora, which is a subsidiary brand of Great Wall Motors just like Haval, have not disclosed any powertrain details about the Punk Cat. However, assuming that its EV guts are pretty closely related to the aforementioned Good Cat, we can expect a front-drive layout thanks to a single electric motor producing 145PS and 210Nm.

That said, it should also be fitted with a pretty large battery and support DC fast charging as that car’s standard range is quoted as just over 400km thanks to a usable 47.8kWh battery. An even larger 59.1kWh battery option is also available, extending the range to around 500km.

Since the Ora Good Cat was spied roaming around the streets of Selangor earlier this year, there’s a possibility of the Punk Cat coming to a showroom nearby sooner or later. It would certainly add a welcome dose of fun and quirkiness into the world of EVs, perhaps even locally. We reckon the new EV brand probably isn’t planning to storm the German market anytime soon, though.


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