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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.

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

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.

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.

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Y nobody guess proton mpv is based on mitsubishi grandis underpinnings/platform?

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.

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.

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?!?

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!

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.

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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 .

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