Archive for International News

PT Toyota-Astra Motor has launched a new Toyota Avanza facelift for the Indonesian market, together with the new 2007 Toyota Camry as well as a special 50-unit limited edition of the Toyota Yaris with a Superman theme called the Yaris Superman. The new Toyota Avanza facelift gains a new front grille design, a new front bumper, as well as new side protection mouldings on the doors. The interior also gains a new ivory colour scheme, and the third row of seats gets seatbelts. It’s K3-VE 1.3 DOHC VVT-i engine also benefits from better fuel emissions, now complying with Euro II standards, but there doesn’t seem to be any gains in horsepower or torque.

I do not have any information on whether or when UMW Toyota will be launching the new Toyota Avanza facelift here in Malaysia. The Toyota Avanza currently makes up 40% of Toyota sales here in Malaysia, which translates to about 16,800 units for the first six months this year. That’s 2,800 Toyota Avanza 7-seater MPVs a month, which is very good for a Japanese make considering the Proton Waja sells about 2,500 to 3,000 units a month according to Proton Edar CEO Datuk Maruan Mohd Said.

UPDATE: Toyota Avanza 1.5 now available in Malaysia, facelifted model. Click here for details.

Mercedes-Benz has officially revealed the new Mercedes Benz CL-class luxury coupe. The CL-class is a two-door coupe based on the Mercedes Benz S-class, and you know the world is starting to get ridiculous when I have to specifically say a coupe is two-door in order not to confuse it with “four-door coupes” like the Mercedes Benz CLS. More details after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Mercedes Benz CL class - CL500, CL600

UPDATE: The new 2008 Toyota Corolla Altis has been launched in Malaysia! - click for more details, specifications, photos and pricing.

Toyota Motor Corp will be delaying the new Toyota Corolla until 2008, citing engineering resource constraints as the reason. Toyota says the current Corolla, available on Malaysian soils as the Toyota Corolla Altis will keep it’s current design for a sixth year in the USA, only to be replaced in 2008. The Toyota Corolla is normally kept for 5 years, with a mid-life facelift, after of which it is replaced with a new model. Photo shown above is the US market Toyota Corolla S with a Sport Plus Package. The USDM Toyota Corolla is similiar to our local Toyota Corolla Altis, different from the Singaporean Corolla which seems to be based on the European Corolla instead.

Toyota has had to focus all of it’s engineering resources to make sure the 2007 Toyota Camry launched on time, and is confident that the current Corolla will do well for another year. The Toyota Camry is Toyota’s best-selling US model, therefore it was put on a priority and most resources were allocated to it. UMW Toyota plans to launch the 2007 Toyota Camry by end-2006.

It looks like it will be some time until Toyota refreshes the Corolla here in Malaysia, so in my opinion the new 2006 Honda Civic will remain the king of the mid-sized sedan market here in Malaysia until 2008. I’ve heard that the Civic has waiting lists of 2 months for the 1.8S and up to 4 months for the 2.0S model, unconfirmed though.

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As if 170hp from their new 1.4 TSI engine is not enough, Volkswagen is currently testing a 200hp version of their twincharged pocket rocket engine. The engine is currently available in 140hp and 170hp units, and uses twincharging - a combination of supercharging at low engine RPM and turbocharging at high engine RPM - and really precise direct injection to achieve it’s amazing power figures.

Volkswagen acknowledges that most consumers still have the impression that displacement rules all, and look at the size of the engine rather than the amount of torque and horsepower it produces. The 1.4 TSI engines that go into current Volkswagen cars do not have the 1.4 liter engine capacity advertised anywhere including on the model names. The Volkswagen Golf with a 170hp TSI engine is called the Volkswagen Golf GT.

The 1.4 TSI is currently found in the Golf, Golf Plus, and Touran models, but will eventually find it’s way into the Polo, Eos and Passat. I think it will do especially well in a Polo GTI, which is currently powered by a 1.8 liter 150hp engine.

Related Posts:
Volkswagen 1.4 TSI Twincharged Engine
Volkswagen Golf GT 1.4 TSI and 2.0 TDI

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The Bugatti Veyron is the current benchmark of exotic raw supercar performance, surpassing the 1000hp mark and has been the talk of town long before it was actually launched. That might end soon. Porsche is planning a Bugatti Veyron killer called the Porsche GT1. The announcement of the new GT1 comes shortly after Porsche announced the end of production for the Porsche Carrera GT. The Carrera GT (shown above) was only in production for 3 years and there are only 1,111 in the world, with more than half of it in North America.

The new Porsche GT1 will offer roughly 950 horsepower and will likely be based on the same chassis as the Porsche Carrera GT, except that it will have a solid roof coupe body instead of being a roadster. Despite having “only” 950 horses, the GT1 is expected to be lighter than the Veyron for better power to weight ratio. The Porsche Carrera GT weighs only 1380kg while the Veyron weighs 1887kg. The GT1 is expected to be around the same weight as the Carrera GT. Of course, it will likely have all wheel drive to put all those horses down to the ground so they can be usable for some good acceleration times. Top speed is expected to be 254mph (408 km/h), 2mph over the Veyron’s top speed of 252mph.

And of course, it’s not that hard to beat the Veyron’s looks.

Proton will be bringing in new models like the Gen2, Satria Neo, Savvy and Waja into the Indonesian car market in January 2007. It currently sells the Proton Wira there, which are assembled at it’s Cikarang plant in West Java. The USD$20 million Cikarang plant has a full capacity of 50,000 cars a year, or 4166 cars a month, but currently only outputs 300 Proton Wiras a month.

The Proton Wira is mainly marketed as a taxi in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan, and will continue to be sold there to the same target market of taxi drivers. Proton admits however, that the Indonesian market currently seems to be particularly interested in MPVs.

Proton aims to sell 3,000 cars a year there once it’s Indonesian operations are fully set up. Which makes me wonder, if 3,000 is a target, then how much is being sold now? 300 Proton Wiras produced a month is already 3,600 Wiras a year. Does this mean unsold Wiras are being stockpiled in yards?

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Perodua aims to increase export activity beginning mid-2007 with it’s Indonesian exports spearheading the export drive. Originally, the Perodua Myvi was to be exported to other ASEAN countries in the second half of 2006, but domestic orders have been averaging 7,000 units a month for the last three months.

The plans were postponed due to the lack of production capacity available for export. Perodua intends to help create a compact car market in Indonesia and sell about 500 Perodua Myvi cars a month. Indonesia has a relatively low person to car ratio and the automotive industry volume in 2006 to date is 30-40 percent lower than the same period last year. Compact cars will be welcome in the Indonesian market. Just October last year, the Indonesian government raised fuel prices by 87% in drastic measures to reduce subsidies that are hurting the government coffers.

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The Volkswagen Group intends to phase out the use of traditional automatic gearboxes in their product range entirely, replacing them with it’s advanced Direct Shift Gearbox, or DSG. It will begin the phasing out with Volkswagen cars that have their engines mounted transversely. Research is currently being conducted to adapt the use of the DSG transmission for longitudinal-mounted engines.

Click here to read the rest of VW phases out automatics; makes way for DSG

Ford Malaysia seems to be on an aggresive marketing campaign for the Ford Escape, perhaps in preparation to clear off it’s existing CBU stock for this. Ford has launched a new facelifted Ford Escape in Japan.

The Ford Escape’s current honeycomb mesh grille nose has been refreshed to the same chrome bar style of grille as the new Ford Ranger and Ford Everest, with a few other exterior design enhancements like new bumper, head lamp and tail lamp design. From some of these photos it seems you also get the obligatory signal lamp on wing mirror feature which every car manufacturer seems to be implementing these days, though if Ford Malaysia refreshes it I don’t know if we’ll get that level of trim.

Other than aesthetic enhancements, the 2.3 liter inline-4 in the Escape 2.3L VICS has also been equipped with variable valve timing, and the SUV’s overall NVH has been improved. More photos and two videos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 Ford Escape Facelift launched in Japan

The AFTA agreement requires that the 6 original ASEAN countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei) cut import tariffs between each other to zero by 2010. This requirement does not apply to new developing ASEAN countries like Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Currently it has been agreed that automotive tariffs on CBU vehicles and CKD kits are to be lowered to 5%.

Thailand says it will not reduce it’s import tax on CBU vehicles from Malaysia to 5% and will maintain it’s current 20% import tax, as it says Malaysia has imposed non-tax tariff barriers on it’s automotive industry despite reducing it’s import tax to 5%. Thailand Fiscal Policy Office director-general Naris Chaiyasoot says Malaysia’s requirements for automotive manufacturers to register for approvals is a non-tariff barrier and this does not comply with the AFTA agreement.

This might affect the competitiveness and profit margins of made in Malaysia automotive products exported to Thailand, like the new Toyota Hiace van announced recently.

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