Seriously, for me, i don care if proton making money or loose money.
Just as long as we got the best quality car from proton, all of us will be happy. No power window problem, no weird sound problem, no Gen2 door problem…

Pls grow up and don’t give immature comments ! Does pointing out the flaws of toyota mean that i am a honda salesman?

Face the fact ok…the vios was a sub standard “3rd world” toyota.

And what study are you refering to? mmsaidi childish study? if 4 speed gearbox is better than 5 speed, what for all luxury cars have 5, 6 or 7 speed? Prove it ! Why camry 2.4 got 5-speed auto? So vios is better than camry??? If true, then toyota must be ripping all camry buyers!!!
Or u r saying toyota gearbox is the best in the world? Thats pure crap!!…If you say ZF has the best gearboxes at least acceptable although not entirely true. Thats what hardcore fanboys like you do all the time. All talk and no prove.

That is just a sour grape statement.

Oh…the saga’s 3 speed gearbos is better than the vios 4-speed …cheaper to maintain…in your study…right?

I have been entertaining the idea of running CNG on our fuel hog 1.5 wira auto but reservations remain. Once we convert the car to CNG, we wont be able to run petrol (our car is EFI).

When will proton be REALLY ready to stand by itself and be competitive in the global auto manufacturing?

Considering all the money invested, spent and lost over the 20+ years period,
How long will Proton expect to make REAL profit? Afterall, Proton is a business venture, yes?

i dun think its original…good effort tho

proton needs to try extremely hard to lose money in malaysia. very hard. it is almost impossible for them to lose money.

Economist now view what we and most East Asian countries did back then, were right. What we did was buying our own manufactured items. We kept capital outflow to a minimum. We tried very hard to keep the money in Malaysia and not getting loans which we would then also have to follow by their rules. People seem to forget how the westerners predicted doom on us for fixing the currency rate to the USD. But we survived because we know what is good for us.

For a brief period, our economy almost followed down the drains. BLR shot up overnight to 11%. Most of us defaulted on credit cards and loans. We couldn’t get loans and were paying through our bleeding nose. All bacuase the Finance Minister at that time wasn’t an economist and listened too much to the IMF.

Now, when every single country is giving up on the Doha initiative, our local guys still want to see it happening here? Or are we too ignorant about the fact that the Doha initiative is doom to failure because major world economies wont let go of their subsidies in agriculture.

Yes, our government protects local business coz it keeps the money here. But so do other much more bigger countries. Why do Proton have to build to European emission laws when the Vios or the City doesn’t? They don’t sell Vios there because the engine was never meant to be destined to a market with strict environmental laws. But Proton does. Why does Proton test for Euro NCAP while the Vios or the City doesn’t? Same answer.

Proton needs to spend more on testing and verification because it is targeting that market. Therefore higher cost in R+D is involved. Which is not fair deal against competitors who doesn’t.

Put yourself in their shoes: You’ve just started, need a bit of help, so the govt implement protectionism policies here and there, then suddenly, the govt say… aa cannot cannot, its been too long, take away protection, bam open up market… mampos Proton.
Now imagine if the Govt suddenly say..aa cannot cannot, subsidy is killing the govt budget, free float petrol prices…bam we all mampos in like a month or so…wait, no need to imagine, you just got a little glimpse of it recently, just a prick…the petrol price went up..

The point is, don’t be too harsh on Proton. I’m sure we all were pissed when the govt raised petrol prices, but hey, we’re protected, for a reason, coz if not the whole economy might collapse, inflation, bla bla, etc.. They just need time… If you think you’re good enough to not need protectionism then you can go to Petronas station, fill up the tank with, say RM100 petrol, but at cashier you pay RM300 just for the sake of anti-protectionism… Even if anyone can financially afford to do this, I’m sure I can wait till Hell freezes over and still not a single person would do it. Get my point.

But yeah it only started to get right when idiot TM was kicked out… from here on all we need is hard work and more hard work…

I know some might be thinkin about ‘comparative advantage’, that somehow, maybe we are just not suited for automobile manufacturing, maybe its the knowledge, people or resources, just not suited for this stuff. So what are we gonna do?, continue with just palm oil, and petroleum export for the next 50 years. My opinion is that we cannot become a developed nation unless we have home grown capability for industrial manufacturing that are developed by ourselves. And this is what we are trying for with Proton. U see any other enterprise here in Malaysia doing this?

Sorry, got a bit patriotic there, because its nearing end of August i think.

OK, you can all beat the shit out of this comment now…

“without proton everyone is driving he self a dream car without tax …”
likewise, there is no country in the world where you drive a car without tax.. you can go anywhere in the world, and taxes are a fact of life. maybe you should actually go to a proton showroom one day, and pickup a price list.. in the breakdown of the OTR price of the car, you will see a column listing tax and excise duty.. yes, believe it.. proton cars are taxed also.. wow.. amazing… so there is no such thing as tax free, not even proton.

Roti Naan,

Sorry dude, I can’t agree with you about “govt and proton are abang-adik”… it’s more of a ‘Master and the puppets’ kind of scheme! Everyone knows Proton is owned by Khazanah right? Who else sit in the chairs of Khazanah other than a bunch of government cronies!

Tanasi,

On your post “make profit also wrong, to be in the red also wrong”…you got a point right there dude. Aisay, if Proton announced they lose money…haiya, this thread mesti kena bomb like nobody bisnes punye! Bash kaw-kaw wan! Friends, last time when Proton is under TM with it’s all protective market, the bloodly guy lose money like sh*t lar. Making ’sporty’ cars tak habis-habis until Proton lost ALL of it’s credibility. At least treat this as a good news even as little as sand.

Datuk Syed Zainal,

Congrats for all your good and hard work man (even you may not read this)! You truly are worthy to lead Proton to it’s better future. Looking forward with the coming MPV and please do upgrade your quality b’coz Proton really need to tackle that main problem first. It’s still a very very long way to go Proton!

Cheers everyone! Peace!

Have you seen cars from the other markets - the one so called ‘fair’ and ‘unprotected’? They are cheap not for no reason - non assisted steering, manual window regulator, single side mirror, material color bumper, no heated rear glass - these kind of equipment level is still acceptable for base line models to be cheap.

but not in Malaysia. The market has certain expectations and these things are not cheap, even for Proton or whoever for that matter.