Volkswagen is stepping up efforts to find a production base in South East Asia and will send a team of 20 people led by the VW group’s head of overseas manufacturing Christof Spathelf to ASEAN countries to look for suitable locations for its production base, or possibly multiple production bases.
The scenario could be either base or bases because according to sources, Vee-Dub’s top executives are having internal debates on whether to pick one single factory that can produce between 120,000 to 150,000 cars a year, or choose several bases – up to 5 factories in 5 countries to assemble CKD kits. VW group production head Jochem Heizmann said the ASEAN market is very varied from country to country – Thailand is a strong market for pickups while Malaysia is a strong passenger car market.
Because of this scenario, there may just still be hope for CKD Volkswagen cars here in Malaysia. One thing’s for sure – Volkswagen wants to try to enter without substantial investments so we may see some form of JV at least in terms of production capacity sharing with the owner of an existing plant.
Volkswagen predicts the ASEAN market countries will collectively hold a sales potential of 3 million new cars per year by 2018 from 1.7 million in 2007. ASEAN is considered a “gap in the map” that has to be filled in Volkswagen’s plans along with Russia and India.
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I can see a big ‘L’ letter on Pak Lah’s forehead. Paul, is it true the new Proton MPV use the VW Sharan platform because previously they bought the platform from VW. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_Sharan
I can see a big ‘L’ letter at Pak Lah’s forehead now. Paul, is it true the Proton new MPV use VW Sharan paltform? The bought the platform from VW last couple of years back. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_Sharan
Jual aje lah kilang PTM buat cam Perodua.. Senang cerita apa lah bongok.. 51% VW 49 Proton.. RND ko punya, dist ko punya bongok betul.. nak ROI vol jer lah yg boleh tolong idiot !!! geram sampai nak pikir nak tulis dlm Eng pon tak boleh..
err..scottloeb, aku xfaham la shortforms tu..
ble explain x?
vw minibus cun gak :)
azrai said,
September 19, 2008 @ 7:05 am
I can see a big ‘L’ letter at Pak Lah’s forehead now. Paul, is it true the Proton new MPV use VW Sharan paltform? The bought the platform from VW last couple of years back. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_Sharan
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i think its the first time ive ever heard anyone say the new proton mpv is a vw sharan. everyone else claims either korean or china.
since everyone is claiming also without any facts, i’ll do the same and be original and say that the new proton mpv is probably based on the old mitsu eterna/perdana platform, and lengthened with some extra steel welded on. now thats speculation for you.
Dear BanyakMasukWoksyop,
No wonder you have to be in the workshop so many time. my mind goes beyond my tounge and writing. refer to this; http://paultan.org/archives/2005/10/24/proton-to-buy-passat-and-sharan-platforms/
scottloeb..
“Senang cerita apa lah bongok” – cerita memang senang
“51% VW 49 Proton.. RND ko punya, dist ko punya bongok betul” – ini yg ko nak, VW nak ke arrangement mcm ni?
siapa bongok sebenarnya ni?
Puasa 2 jgn geram sgt…
Actually Proton should JV with VW if they want to stay profitable and survivability. But the changes must come from a strong political will. If some political link company can’t compete to the world standard, admit it and start business tempe.
Let see which co. picks by VW.
IMHO, JV with VW will be meaningful and most entertaining!
1) Meaningful in the sense we can learn about their work ethics, effort being put into the car and parts design and manufacturing al the way down to vendor selection. It’s like a whole new form of knowledge!
2) Entertaining in the sense seeing VW people trying to comprehand OUR working culture, takpe la, sikit je, boleh la tu! Definitely will drive them mad!
My 2 sen’s worth
scottloeb said,
September 19, 2008 @ 8:06 am
Jual aje lah kilang PTM buat cam Perodua.. Senang cerita apa lah bongok.. 51% VW 49 Proton.. RND ko punya, dist ko punya bongok betul.. nak ROI vol jer lah yg boleh tolong idiot !!! geram sampai nak pikir nak tulis dlm Eng pon tak boleh..
—
You’re just like typically ‘malay’
selling everything they got. Just like they jual tanah. Nothing left then.
To build a thing, and make it profitable is not an easy. it took long time. Proton not a mistake. The wrong is who run it .
Let’s say VW continuing talks with Proton for a JV. I think there is a possibility they will have the production in Indonesia. The fact is that Proton has set-up a factory in the Cikarang area with a capacity of around 70.000 cars. This plant is not being used by Proton because of low sales in Indonesia. The site itself still has a large area to be developed 7 ha used from around 18 ha of land.
In the Indonesian business papers Proton Indonesia has expressed their intentions to rent the plant for other car manufacturers who has very high orders (e.g Nissan, Suzuki and Honda)
VW Sharan?? So far we got Wish, Chery, Mitubishi, Kia…..anyone suggesting Espace?
And the correct answer is ………………………………wait till March 2009!
I put my brain beyond my tounge and my hands. I said it so based on this. paultan.org/archives/2005/10/24/proton-to-buy-passat-and-sharan-platforms/
vx Sharan is same size as the naza ria/ford galaxy n so on…i dont tink thrs any truth in that anyway…i wont be surprised if its based on a modified waja/gen2 chasis…i mean that was the basic idea behind the gen2 chasis is for it to be a flexible chasis design that can be a mpv or carry a big v8 at the front….
bmpower said,
Proton not a mistake. The wrong is who run it .
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Couldn’t agree with you more on that one. If you ask me, Proton is NEVER a mistake but Tengku Mahalel is! Nuff’ said.
If the appointment of Tengku Mahaleel was a mistake, then we have Tun Mahathir to thank. He was so impressed with Mahaleel, and did not realise that it was all talk and no talent. Proton suffered at the hands of these two men.
In his haste Tun Mahathir, makes bad judgement when it comes to character and capability. So many of his appointees have gone on to be disasters for the country (although they could have made lots of money for themselves) E.g. Daim Zainuddin, Abdullah Ang, Amin Shah, Tengku Mahaleel, and of course, we have our present PM.
The sad part is that we the taxpayers have to bear the costs.
Just watch how the government f**ks it up again if Vw looks into Malaysia.
Oh ya… I’m bongok. That’s why im here writing comments in PT just like you.
Perodua arrangement is the same (for the plant). In fact, if you dig in Toyota list of factory worldwide Perodua plant is listed as 1 of 2 toyota plant in M’sia (the other one is ASSB, 49% TMC, 51% UMW which churns out your lovely vios dugong and CKD IMV series with some Daihatsu lorry and Hino Chassis). Of course for Perodua they are not supposed to be considered as national car but the business model works. They still employ local engineer, the technology still being transfered (albeit at a very slow speed) but they managed to export (they even have plans for future daihatsu small car based in ASEAN). For ProtonTanjungMalim, is it so hard just to sell the factory? you can get the volume you need to run the plant, or they probably running at lost now. You have max 300K plant running under capacity, so for the pride of Melayu tanak jual just the kilang you run the factory sampai tadak duit (or we could tax Malaysian to get the money) pastuh jual the whole co, so sapa pandai? Infact with collaboration you could get better quality persona/G2/savvy/whatever future model plan for PTM. Heijunka method can be applied, still you could save a lot by sharing resources. Infact when Toyota started venturing in States, they join with GM (in kentucky plant if I not mistaken) and from there onwards GM car also improve along with Toyota. Now the plant operator have better kaizen culture then japan, even they are not afraid to pull the andon to stop the line (TPS practice for quality). Who lose now? Think!
satu lagi. bila you mix politic & business this kind of crap la the final product.
when will we get our volkswagen golf gti?
NAP will scare people away. Protectionism will scare people away. Not sure why VW want to invest in malaysia
they won’t, there’s thailand and more attractively…vietnam…you should see the motor industry there, everybody drive merc’s and bmw’s
Actually from my last visit to vietnam and combodia, i found out that a lot of ppl driving Toyota cars especially from Thailand factory. old merc and bmw also a lot, due to they tend to buy secondhand from other country, like us but at a cheaper rate.
Since their fuel is world price, then the car is cheaper. But the worst thing in Malaysia is that fuel is world price but other car are artificial expensive, except for PROTON & PERODUA!
I gurantee the VW wont come back to us, except Proton sell cheapo price to them. RM1 anybody?!?
come to malaysia…
the scenrario i picture is that msians will be forced to buy proton over and over again until they cannot afford to buy proton anymore while the rest of asean enjoy a competitive car market.
i think VW will only come if they are given protectionism rights similar to proton from the government.
i don’t think selling tg malim plant is necessary.. i remember last time when tg mahalel has secured a deal with VW to assemble their cars at tg malim, VW Passat if i’m not mistaken. they are about to setup their office in proton shah alam, in fact some of the machine has already arrived and to be fix to PTM for testing. everything goes to drain when mahalel is gone. i guess the deal can be invoke again as the tg malim plant can produce 1 million cars a year if running in full capacity. well may be…..
aicariefin
i heard that proton is about to sell off their chikarang plant to indian base company and all the equipments to the south american company. they decided to sell CBU rather than the CKD in indonesia as the cost is not much different.
one thing though, the golf gti is actually sold at a rather low price(if follow the norm of the malaysian excise duties)…we are the only country in the world where a gti is cheaper than a mini
VW is considering Cambodia also
Patapon
i heard that proton is about to sell off their chikarang plant to indian base company and all the equipments to the south american company. they decided to sell CBU rather than the CKD in indonesia as the cost is not much different.
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Well actually they already have given some parts of its plant to TVS. Regarding the equipment I haven’t heard anything on sales to any South American Company. What they are trying to offer is renting their plants to car manufacturers who needs to expand their capacity. Yes they have decided to sell it in CBU form because they couldn’t reach their optimistic target in Indonesia.
azrai said,
September 19, 2008 @ 7:05 am
I can see a big ‘L’ letter at Pak Lah’s forehead now. Paul, is it true the Proton new MPV use VW Sharan paltform? The bought the platform from VW last couple of years back. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_Sharan
————————————–
i think its the first time ive ever heard anyone say the new proton mpv is a vw sharan. everyone else claims either korean or china.
since everyone is claiming also without any facts, i’ll do the same and be original and say that the new proton mpv is probably based on the old mitsu eterna/perdana platform, and lengthened with some extra steel welded on. now thats speculation for you.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Y nobody guess proton mpv is based on mitsubishi grandis underpinnings/platform?
Not all European company can or would want to open a JV company. They are afraid of legal implications as they lose control. They would like us to take the ‘maintaining German quality’ issue. Which is a farce. When its the Germans, its always about control. We cannot lose our country’s real development (not just GDP) for the sake of FDIs.
Yes, they are stupid in that sense. AND don’t start about the almost abandoned Global Free Trade issue coz its dead and buried with the Doha rounds. Free Trade is nothing when our own economy erodes. Free Trade is not Fair Trade. Go ask the Mexicans, the Argentinians who fell for the Washington Consensus.
What irks me is that they think less of us. They don’t speak to us, they talk down on us.
When VW pulled out of talks with us. There was hue and cry for the loss of opportunity and FDI. Thinking that they’d use the Indonesian factory. Up to now, we know of no other factory in Asean doing VW. It was a front. A threat. A ruse. Most of us fell for the trap. If they come back to the negotiation board, we would be all the more wiser and experienced. And they’ve lost a lot of advantage.
i doubt they will come and set up a factory here. malaysia isn’t even a serious source of income for them.
Yes! Yes! Move on nothing to see here!
If you look into the German psyche, its not because of anything else but internal politics. They have an South East Asian VP who needs to prove himself. The only parts of the world that has the most growth is East Asia which includes us. In Malaysia there is market growth for them as other German marques are doing quite well. Therefore, there is good acceptance of the German brand. One of the biggest stumbling block when you need to penetrate a market is perception.
VW Asia Pacific may think that their branding is good but no execution plan to move forward.
I’ll bet you this press release is another teaser to entice us to make us call them and not the other way around. Arrogant bastards. Don’t they know that they as a business community have a perception as being arrogant? Another disadvantage at the negotiation table. They should work on it. But I don’t think they’ll bother
even if volkswagen comes, i hope they don’t give us a skoda. at least it won’t be as bad as the hyper idiotic general motors who gave us chevrolets which are rebadged daewoo’s when they could have gave us saabs and opels
I hope VW’s plans for an ASEAN plant pushes through, this is their only solution for them to be able to price their cars competitively.
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“even if volkswagen comes, i hope they don’t give us a skoda. at least it won’t be as bad as the hyper idiotic general motors who gave us chevrolets which are rebadged daewoo’s when they could have gave us saabs and opels”
Importing Opels and Saab (GM’s premium euro brand) from Europe is expensive.
The new global Chevys (GMDAT models) are now developed on GM platforms. The new Chevy Cruze (Optra replacement) uses the same platform as the upcoming European Opel Astra.
I wonder if VW will give us the Lavida or similar model from China or the product like Jetta from German…