Great Wall's Wey brand has put the Gaoshan 8 HEV on sale in China. Two trims are offered at 259,800 and 279,800 yuan under the launch programme, against a unified retail price from 265,800 yuan, and the car was opened for pre-order on 19 October at 275,800 yuan. The pitch is "a smart, luxurious all-wheel-drive MPV that never needs charging".
Photo: JustAnotherCarDesigner / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
A blue-plate MPV with a lidar
HEV is the key word. Where most new Chinese MPVs are plug-in hybrids or pure electric, the Gaoshan 8 HEV carries a small 3.64 kWh ternary pack and runs as a full hybrid: fill it with petrol and drive away. Wey claims it is the first blue-plate MPV in China to carry a lidar, using a 192-line unit with 27 sensors in total and an Orin-Y chip at 200 TOPS.
- Body: 5,280 x 1,960 x 1,900 mm, wheelbase 3,145 mm, three rows and seven seats
- Powertrain: 2.0-litre turbo plus front and rear motors, four-speed Hi4 performance four-wheel drive
- Output: 322 kW and 782 Nm, 0-100 km/h in 5.9 seconds
- Consumption: 6.92 L/100 km WLTC, top speed 190 km/h, 92-octane petrol
- Battery: 3.64 kWh, no external charging; 220 V outlet rated at 2.2 kW
Photo: JustAnotherCarDesigner / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Coffee Pilot 3 across the range
The driver-assistance system is Coffee Pilot 3, supporting city and highway NOA, unbroken space-to-space assistance, 100-metre reverse track-back, 3 km memory parking and remote parking. Wey's phrasing is that it works wherever there is a road and parks wherever it can be seen.
The 2.2 kW external power supply is a practical addition for a family car: it is strong enough for camping cooking or a kettle, and works while driving or parked, which most oil-hybrid MPVs cannot do at that output.
Three rows, and screens for all of them
Inside there are two 15.6-inch 2.5K panels for the driver and passenger, a 17.3-inch 3K ceiling screen for the second row, Coffee OS 3.5 on a Snapdragon 8295P chip, and a 23-speaker Dolby Atmos system rated at 2,440 W. A 12.5-litre dual-door cool-and-warm fridge is fitted.
Seating is the family-facing part. Both second-row seats are zero-gravity units with 12-point massage, and the third row, often the neglected one, gets heating and ventilation. The flat floor and shared second and third-row rails are carried over from the rest of the Gaoshan range. The minimum turning radius is 5.7 metres, which matters in a car this long.
Reading the timing
The Gaoshan 8 HEV arrives while most rivals are pushing plug-in hybrids or pure electric into the same segment, and it targets a specific buyer: someone who wants the cabin hardware and driver assistance of a new-energy MPV but has no home charger and no interest in finding one. With charging taken out of the equation, the 5.9-second four-wheel-drive drivetrain and the 6.92 L/100 km consumption figure are the two numbers that will decide whether the compromise works.