Smart, stylish, and promising.
We carried a story about nascent luxury marque Wey, a sub-brand underneath the larger Haval umbrella, back in November. Its then-new model, named the P8, would be the very-first plug-in hybrid from the larger company, and previewed technology that would only logically trickle down into the wider range of Haval products in due course.
Haval themselves have now made that claim, saying that the P8 previews the very first plug-in hybrid powertrain that the SUV specialists will adopt, likely taken in one go with the Pi4 platform.
In the P8, motivation comes from a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol mill that drives the front wheels, as well as an electric motor that drives the rear wheels. Combined powertrain output is rated at 250kW and 524Nm, pretty impressive for a car of this size, and capable of hurtling it from rest to 100km/h in just 6.5-seconds.
We’re quite confused about whether to refer to it as the Wey P8 or the Haval P8, because Haval keeps referring to it as their “first PHEV” while still using the ‘Wey’ branding liberally.
Anywey. The P8 has a unique design language, despite being based on something called a Wey VV7. There’s reason to believe that this design will eventually trickle down into the greater Haval range, which we certainly won’t be complaining about…
Jack Wey, the founder of Wey Automobiles and owner of its parent company Haval, said that the firm is making considerable headway in terms of vehicular autonomy too.
“Our concept XEV that we showed at the Frankfurt Motor Show already reached Level 3 automation, and we are on-target to reach Level 4 in the next two years. We have focused our resources on building the largest station for autonomous driving and intelligent interconnection in China, which will be operational by year end.” — Jack Wey, Founder, Wey Automobiles
As expected of a premium brand contending in the Chinese market, there’s a whole ton of technology here. Safety is dealt with with things like autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane-change assist, lane keeping aid, lane-departure warning, intelligent cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, a video-streaming rear-view monitor, and a 360º camera system.
It’s pretty clear that Wey will not be making its way out of China, but there’s strong indication that the Haval badge may be fielded for export models. Hell, even if they just base a Haval off this, we’ll be pretty happy.
For more information on Haval, check out our Showroom.
