and if its a fair tax system in place i think we would witness alot more companies other than toyota honda setting up factory/assembling operations here. if we dont see it, then the protection isnt removed. now if they would have done this earlier….say before honda, toyota, mazda and gang decided to build thier plant in thailand, could have brought the country alot of money.

in my view a corolla or mazda3 is about the same price as buying a proton persona. drive off the show room floor. the extra 3000-4000aussie dollar u saved buying the proton or kia/hyundai is almost evaporated. now that would still be ok if u were owning the car for 1 day. but if ure planning on keeping it for 3-5 years the value of buying the corolla adds up.

ezralimm,

you are correct…i dont get it why people still argue even if you clearly stated our pricing is ok…not cheap but not really expensive…

make it simple.when you give example about Australian price..someone came up with Langkawi and Labuan…for god sake…LANGKAWI AND LABUAN has ZERO tax….THAT MEANS NO TAX AT ALL!!!!

even if its RM 74000 on the road..with minimum tax lets say 25% its about RM 93000..so about RM 20000 about that the actual price that we suppose to pay for a CIVIC even if at that price its still expensive…for the people who earn an average salary..because we are underpaid!!!we are getting third world salary…simple!!we still go back to square one..buying proton or perodua…

so why waste time talking about NAP when most malaysian are still getting third world salary??

when we ask for more…other prices increases too…food,fuel,gold, and so many to name…so tax is not the issue now….because many people who own VIOS,city and etc are buying perodua n proton…because the cant afford to pay the installment…sooner or later we have to think twice to eat breakfast or supper…because even our country’s cheapest food..roti canai has gone up to RM 1 to 1.20….so for me…NAP or protecting proton is not the issue at all…protecting us is more important!!!

ezralimm,

you are correct…i dont get it why people still argue even if you clearly stated our pricing is ok…not cheap but not really expensive…

make it simple.when you give example about Australian price..someone came up with Langkawi and Labuan…for god sake…LANGKAWI AND LABUAN has ZERO tax….THAT MEANS NO TAX AT ALL!!!!

ur proposal is irrelevant. the rich is already paying income tax higher. the rich buy persona and to pay additional rm30k annually? what’s that? this will create more problems only.

xsaraloeb, a huge majority of accident deaths are contributed by motorcyclists.. even then, by making that statement, you are totally not taking into account, poor road design, bad driver habits, poor training.. etc. etc.. and the list keeps going on and on.

your comments are totally bias. how many other cars in teh market have traction control for example?

i suppose you probably want to pay Rm25k for a proton, with 6 airbags, traction control, and maybe an ejection seat??

And your idea of “affordable” seems to differ from that of most working class families…perhaps you mean they are technically able to buy one provided they hamstring themselves financially with a 9 year loan that probably will leave them “upside down” by the end (remaining loan higher than value of vehicle). But as far as the usual perception of affordable, that their household budget can absorb the cost without unreasonable stress, no way.

1. Petrol tax

2. CO2 Emission tax

These two additonal taxes will solve it all. Petrol tax only applied to car above 1600cc (petrol) and for diesel engine cars it’s for 2500cc and above. RTD stats shows there are 10million cars. Take general rule of thumb of 10%. So assuming 1million cars owned by the rich, impose at least RM30K petrol tax annually (Yes, every year) to make the rich to absorp current govt fuel subsidies (RM20b-RM30b for car users).
For CO2 Emission tax, the less efficient/ less cleaner your car engine the more you should pay. CO2 emission cap is at 200g/ km. Anything above that will cost more, on top on usual engine capacity road tax ruling.

Conclusion:
Govt therefore must make cars below 1600cc as cheap as possible and giving diesel engine cars a due consideration for its fuel efficiency and new generation of clean diesel engine.
The rich must be taxed as high as possible, every year.

So, ready to pay minimum RM30K annual petrol tax for your BMW?

P1 has always been selling cheap cars in Malaysia with less and less specs in the past years.

Airbags – No need airbag la because all P1 owners or potential buyers are Ironman or Wonder Woman…so can save cost….u want airbag I charge you RM3K more.

ABS – No need ABS becoz Malaysia drivers are used to brake at the last minute…so if put ABS then the spare parts sale will be less…u want ABS I charge u RM5K more.

Traction control – No need traction due to Malaysian drivers like to drive very fast in corners becoz most of them thot that P1 cars are designed by bankrupt UK racing company…u want traction control I charge u RM8K

Can’t the Govt see that the price of Malaysian lives is short by RM16K. Our live are that cheap with our national car.

Many lives can be saved if our national cars are better equipped.

“The truth is, you could have gotten a Mitsubishi Lancer or a Mazda3 for the price of a Saga.”
- such perception is false. ask your friends overseas about this.
- both the mazda3 and lancer are significantly bigger cars than the saga to begin with, and are proper 2.0L class small sedans.
- They inherently cost more. RM70k+ in a fair tax scenario. Check langkawi price if you dont believe… normal fair tax price (the same tax proton also pays) will be slightly higher

We are paying far more for the same car, and we are world top 3 in car ownership. Still we seeing lots of nice ca on the road, and almost everyone own a car now. Its necessary to have tax to limit the cars running out there. Although its painful to hear this, car import tax will be the best practise. You can a bigger car, you got to pay more.
——–

Just what sort of logic is this. Are you really serious in trying to justify the high car taxes?

Maybe you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but do you really understand and feel the pinch that the regular household get saddled with an average car (not large or luxurious) with a 9 year loan?

This actaully because Perodua Licence to produce 1.5liter car is recently approved, and it was like 3 years ago.

——————-

I dont know if you can speak for perodua but,

Why do they need a license to produce a type of car? Are they not already a car manufacturer.

Proves my point exactly.

On the other hand, you are still paying the same price for other cars that you seeing, and it will be unlikely to go cheap as well. Not just gov, bank, car dealer, they all want to keep everything as is. If not, people will go crash their car and claim high insurance, and get the money to buy mercedes or bmw already. haha.

We are paying far more for the same car, and we are world top 3 in car ownership. Still we seeing lots of nice ca on the road, and almost everyone own a car now. Its necessary to have tax to limit the cars running out there. Although its painful to hear this, car import tax will be the best practise. You can a bigger car, you got to pay more.

Do you really think that an environment where people have to grossly overspend just to get cars that are quite average elsewhere, are tied down to 9 year loans, see it all evaporate from depreciation etc. is really helping to achieve this? Perhaps if people didn’t have to spend a disproportionate percentage of an already limited household income on cars and spares, average family savings and general quality of life would improve quicker.

And how many years till Malaysia is old enough to compare? 75 years? 100? 200? How many more asterisks and excuses can people come up with in the meantime?

>If it means manufacturing cars to retain local talent, so be it.

If it really was all about “retaining local talent”, then it should be obvious that
whatever “local talent” is retained by a handful of expensively propped-up manufacturers is miniscule in comparison to the ongoing brain drain that results from discriminatory policies on education, employment, business, and housing.

>It’s a wise move because the simple minded public wouldnt know that more >of their money (taxpayer dollars) can potentially go into subsidizing proton’s >existance without arousing too much negative sentiment like increasing tax >on foreign cars.

Spoken like a true govt minister! lol @ the simple minded public, such fools to expect the govt to actually do what they said they would!

Even if they want anyone to actually believe them about the taxes, there needs to be full disclosure from the government about duty structures and company exemptions, which should come out about the same time as hell’s ice skating rink opens.

Proton people doesn’t involved in this, the decision was made by the government adviced by the “special advisor” purely to piss off Tun Mahathir and Tg Mahalel. 1 euro of coz only at the surface la, you know la how much they get under the table, commission bla bla…

but i really think that Proton is improved and have done a lot in this 2 years. whether they can survive or not….. about the tax and duty structure, even the opposition party doesn’t comment on it, because they know if they have a chance to govern this country, they will do the same thing, because it is the right thing to do.

Proton nowadays lack the support from the local. How can they reduce production cost when the demand projected is not as high as the previous years.
I believe corruption also prevents a company from developing. so you should understand, since most of us here live in this third world country.
Proton lack of competitive package in their car. Compare elantra and our waja. See the technology and package difference. Earning by keeping margin high and less components will not help to attract more customer.

From when you start to believe Malaysian government politician’s words. That Mr. PM’s words are merely rhetoric just like what he used to preach before.

The fact is, should the big G REALLY remove the protection in a true sense, with it’s status-quo, Proton is going to be a big loser. They will never can survive to compete independently head-to-head with other established manufacturers.

The government won’t dare to hurt their own selves. Any toddler knows that Proton and Malaysian government are the same entity.

Again it comes back to simple supply and demand. Around 20 years or so ago, our country needed great technical knowledge and skills and engineers were scarce and in high demand. So, naturally companies had to pay more for an engineer or risk losing potential employees to other companies who were willing to pay higher salary.

The reverse if true for an over-saturated resource. If there are too many engineers out in the market, engineers had to accept a lower pay or risk losing the potential job to someone else with roughly the same qualification but is willing to take a lower pay.

Students now looking at the market with lowly paid engineers will tend to choose other fields of study thus eventually lowering the supply of engineers again. How long until this happens is anyone’s guess. Of course, it is an oversimplification of the market.

In a free, competitive market, automakers would be force to use better materials, better production methods and better technology for example in order to remain competitive or be driven out of business. Cars will become cheaper to built, competition will drive prices down and everyone wins.

By protecting Proton, the opposite happens. Proton has a free run of the entire lower end of the market and you couldn’t do anything about it. Sure, their Wira’s were prone to auto gearbox problems and everyone’s power windows would fail. Sure you would complain about it, but unless you’re willing to spend an extra say RM30,000 – 50,000 to move into the next price bracket, you grit your teeth and get on with life, convincing yourself you just had to open your car door at toll booths from now on.

The truth is, you could have gotten a Mitsubishi Lancer or a Mazda3 for the price of a Saga.

….. the point is, protons are selling better today than they have for the last 3-4 years.

…..people still bought other brands in droves. those options are still there for people to choose today. but strangely enough, people are starting to come back and buy protons again in the tens of thousands.. this is not by chance or a fluke. you make it sound so simplistic and easy.

————————————————-

hmm… bro, r u suggesting proton had gain ppl trust again? & coz of what?

i’m not an expert but to be fair, i think they did improve by using better quality materials (finishing) in their cars.. starting with Persona… but the durability of the car still in doubts (for me at least)..

i think the main factor for this thousand of ppl ‘come back & buy proton’ again is price… Malaysian already get used to ‘expensive’ proton (which is the cheapest in it segment) & when P1 offer something new with a much better finishing quality & slightly cheaper, ppl will start coming back.. it’s a good strategy… it work (proven)… but do it really mean people start believing in P1 again? hmmm… hard to say (i don’t think so)… coz the P1 buyers (sorry guys ) most likely ppl who can’t afford other brand.. & of coz b’coz the spare parts slightly cheaper too… maybe we can ask this 40k plus (or more?) Persona buyers why do they bought it in the 1st place for confirmation…

just imagine this, if the price of persona,waja,accent, city & vios in the same price brackets (i.e around 5k diff).. they still want to buy P1? if the answer is YES then u made your point my bro… but i really think the answer is still a solid NO… but i maybe wrong.. let ask them.. hehehe

The bottom line is that the purchasing power of malaysians is still relatively low compared to that of first world industrialized countries.The prices are ok i feel, but then again, our wages are far too low .. making vehicles more prized posessions – and hence an emotional topic.

I dont think it’s fair to compare a 50 yr old nation with first world countries*. We have a larger population and we do need to increase our productivity before living standards could approach that of the first world.

… I just watched “guns, germs and steel”. Makes ya think. Wealth has to come from somewhere. Ok some people are going to retort: “petrol! gas! timber!”.. they forget. those resources make up less than half of our exports. Ultimately, we have to move up the value chain in the global economy. If it means manufacturing cars to retain local talent, so be it. If you think other countries dont protect their local car industries you are so mistaken.

As mentioned, thai ppl pay more for imported cars than malaysians. Australia replaces its entire government fleet of Holden full sized sedans every 2yrs/40000km. ..

I think the govt is going to “stop protecting” proton in the sense that they are going to maintain a fair tax scenario… However, proton will still be aided indirectly by “independant vendor assistance” and government purchases. It’s a wise move because the simple minded public wouldnt know that more of their money (taxpayer dollars) can potentially go into subsidizing proton’s existance without arousing too much negative sentiment like increasing tax on foreign cars.

*excluding island states of course :p

LOL.. most likely

If what you say is true, it begs the question, why so late to the party? Everyone and his dog knows that the 1.5/1.6L sedan market is the most popular. What made Perodua not jump headlong into it, especially it has Toyota/Daihatsu’s platforms at its disposal. I wont be holding my breath for a perodua sedan to be priced anywhere near Proton’s price point. It will be more expensive than the Gen2.

_________________________________________________________________________

This actaully because Perodua Licence to produce 1.5liter car is recently approved, and it was like 3 years ago. Yes it’s a bureaucracy thing but Perodua also very slow in R&D even it’s under Toyota subsidary. And do you know First batch of MyVi has problems with engine mounting until it’s engine drop? Toyota engine is actually propriety and manufactured by Yamaha?
Making car is not simple, even adopting another platform you have to re-work back the detailing and specification…to suit back with manufacturer budget..

1. 2 tax free LOCALLY manufacturered car, or bring your registered car(s) back. If you are from a left hand drive country, you can buy a right hand drive car from any country. (pathetic incentive)
2. Visa approval for spouse and children (if married foreigner) (Apa then????)
3. bringing back your personal belongs tax free. (obviously!)
4. Can not leave the country unless you notify the ministry of human resource!!..(almost like jail)
5. Must work in the country minimum 2 years (understandable)
5. Can only sell the car after two years and tax payable against market value of the vehicle at date of sale. (Not really tax free)

Bullshit attractive terms. Firstly..who are you trying to kid buy giving people cars? Not everyone is so hadap for nice cars. Never the crappy “must be locally assembled cars” is another story. Visa for spouses and kids? What kind of stupid incentive is that????? Of course your family should have no problems getting Visas!. Bringing your belongings tax free? Of course la…its understandable.

Yup..thats about it…3 miserable laughable incentives. If you want to bring skilled malaysian back, the gov must provide government low interest loan for buying house, income tax free for 5 years, etc.

i just think everyones going all around a bush with the same arguments, and no one has the facts. the point is, protons are selling better today than they have for the last 3-4 years.regardless of segment, or type of car..etc. people still bought other brands in droves

—
BMW, While I appreciate some of your comments, I’m going to take this down.

Somethign wrong with this picture you just painted?

Right, Even with cars this expensive (relative to everythign else) and our PDI is at all time low, why is everyone buying new cars? Are we all really so well off?

1) no alternatives (try public transportation for a change)
2) used cars are rojaked to death by shadetree mechanics (ie “can of worms”)
3) jsut how many of these new expensive cars are privately owned or company registered?
4) cheaper interest rates and 0 downpayment schemes.
5) 2nd hand cars are expensive too, and difficult to get loans.

When you said facts, I was assuming you a were going to post total sale numbers for the past 20 years of both Proton and all other marques. Then we can match it to the population/demographics.

Did the market really sold more cars on its own, or the car buying public has gotten larger (ie, the late 70s and early 80 generations are buying thier first new car?) Seriously a lot of my colleagues are having a tough time balancing a car loan AND a house loan. Just how many people making 3k can do that?

I still dont believe in buying a new car, so its moot point for me..i have 3 second hand cars…… (no loan to worry about, cheap insurance = bliss….+ and a larger house than I would have otherwise be able to afford)

Alifz said,
May 15, 2008 @ 10:48 am
—————————————————————-
Don’t worry my friend, Perodua will come out with 1.5 sedan in future. It’s in development now….

—————–

If what you say is true, it begs the question, why so late to the party? Everyone and his dog knows that the 1.5/1.6L sedan market is the most popular. What made Perodua not jump headlong into it, especially it has Toyota/Daihatsu’s platforms at its disposal. I wont be holding my breath for a perodua sedan to be priced anywhere near Proton’s price point. It will be more expensive than the Gen2.

There are a lot more factors than meets the eye. A lot of gentlemans agreements go behind closed doors.

4 – and.. then maybe we will realized, how selfish we are before and how bad PM is.. (none of he did going to be good for now)

a touch of destruction maybe…