Three GWM ORA 5 SUVs sat on the forecourt of a disused Collingwood petrol station on Sunday and ran the whole event off their batteries, with no generator and no mains lead in sight.
The site was Little Sam’s Service Station on Wellington Street, dressed up as the ORA Fun Station for four hours. Striped umbrellas, terracotta, a retro food van doing focaccia paninis, a DJ, a caricaturist and a game of petanque, all of it built on a forecourt where the old bowsers are still standing. GWM put its own wall chargers next to them, which is about as blunt as visual metaphors get.
The power was the point. Every socket at the GWM ORA 5 pop-up ran off the cars through Vehicle-to-Load, the feature that lets an electric car push its battery back out through a household plug. Espresso machine, food van, DJ booth, speakers and lighting, the lot of it fed by three small SUVs sitting on the concrete.
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ABOVE: The ORA 5
Vehicle-to-Load Explained
V2L is the least talked about line on an electric car’s spec sheet and one of the most useful. The battery feeds a standard outlet, so the car will run a kettle, a fridge, power tools or a campsite, and it will keep going far longer than any portable pack. Steve Maciver, GWM Australia’s head of marketing and communications, reckons most owners have no idea it is there. “Many people simply don’t realise their car can power appliances, tools, camping equipment or, in this case, an entire event.”
Why the GWM ORA 5 Was Parked in a Dead Servo
The venue for the GWM ORA 5 pop-up was chosen deliberately. A service station is the symbol of the petrol era and there are more of them closing every year, so running a party on a dead one, off car batteries, makes the argument better than a brochure can. The wrapper is a marketing campaign called Live a Little MORA, the coffee and the food were free, and none of that changes the fact that the technology doing the work is standard equipment on the car.
The GWM ORA 5 is the brand’s small electric SUV and part of a local push that runs to nine new models this year. GWM has been busy at the other end of the scale too, with a new 3.0-litre turbo-diesel heading for the Tank 500 and Cannon Alpha. It was a stunt, obviously. It was also the first time anyone here has bothered to show what V2L is for instead of listing it on a features page.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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