Yesterday's launch of the Ora Good Cat in Malaysia signifies not only the arrival of the Ora name, but also a refresh of Great Wall Motor's (GWM) efforts here.

You may remember that Haval – a brand under the GWM umbrella – first entered our country in 2016 starting with the H2 before furthering the range with the H1 and H9. As the brand faded into obscurity, concerns of spare parts availability and aftersales support grew; not a good look when one's trying to re-enter the market.

Speaking at the Good Cat's launch yesterday, the ASEAN Region President of GWM, Elliot Zhang says that the company has revamped its aftersales division with new processes, better stock readiness, and lessons learnt from Thailand.

Also read: Cheapest EV with 500 km range? Ora Good Cat launched in Malaysia; priced from RM 140k, full ADAS among features

"We have already set-up a spare parts centre here in Shah Alam, and it's going to start operations in December. Secondly, part of the warehouse [is] we'll also engage a system where we'll manage the supply and demand of spare parts, [which] gives us more clarity on how to refurbish our stocks."

"Thirdly, experience from Thailand. We pretty much know well what kind of spare part units we need, so this enhances the processess of our spare parts refurbishment.

"As part of the plan for [spare part] stock readiness, we will definitely plan for higher volume, because we do not know how much we need for now as we just only launched the car, but it's definitely more than enough. When we actually start operating here and knowing the user behaviour, then we can look into a better process for our stock refurbishment," Zhang explained.

As far as service centres are concerned, GWM will start with 5 3S (Sales, Service, and Spare Parts) centres in December, while expanding to 15 beginning 2023.