Paul Tan on the Automotive Industry
I know many of you will be excited to see this as there has been no SRM spyshot updates in a long time. These Proton Satria Replacement Model spy photos were captured by spy auto photographer Hans G. Lehmann in England going through test rounds. It’s covered with black tape. And with one look, you can see it’s turbocharged!
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Proton and EON’s board have sent statements to Bursa Malaysia that their directors and major shareholders were not aware of any decision of Proton wanting to buy DRB-Hicom’s stake in EON.
The National Franchised Dealers Association has published the results of the latest Dealer Attitude Survey and Proton topped the charts.
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An unnamed industry source says that Proton may buy up DRB-Hicom’s 29.3% stake in car distributor Edaran Otomobil Nasional Bhd (EON).
The source said Proton may start with buying up DRB-Hicom shares, then proceed to buy up other stake held by government through the EPF and Khazanah Nasional which owns 12% and 6.2% respectively.
The plan is to eventually combine Proton Edar and EON.
Here’s the video of the Proton Waja EuroNCAP Crash test. I remember seeing this on Top Gear once, where Jeremy Clarkson was showing the difference between a Ford Fiesta, Proton Impian (Waja) and a Toyota Avensis. The Toyota naturally scored a 5 star out of 5 star result.
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An 31 year old executive in Perodua has been detained by the Anti-Corruption Agency for arranging faster delivery for the Perodua Myvi car, which currently has a reported waiting list of seven months long.
The man had been working with certain Perodua dealers to enable their customers to get their Perodua Myvi delivered faster at an additional cost of about RM2-4K each. This fees was to be split 50-50 between him and the dealers.
The ACA also detained a 41-year old car dealer from Klang involved in this scheme. One that is found guilty of corruption can be fined up to RM10,000 or five times the bribe amount, whichever is higher, and between two weeks to 20 years in jail.
The Star reports initial investigations have shown the man had transactions which earned him up to RM40-50K so far. That would mean a RM200,000 fine.
Source: The Star
Perodua has revised it’s break-even timeline to 2 years and 3 months instead of the original 3 years for the Perodua Myvi’s investment of RM210 million based on overwhelming sales.
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Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said yesterday that Proton will sell stake to Volkswagen AG yesterday, causing Proton shares to go up as much as 3.6 percent to an eight-day high of 8.55 ringgit.
Volkswagen wants to lessen it’s dependance on China, where it’s market share fell from 2/3 in 1985 to just 18 percent now. If the deal goes through, Volkswagen will get it’s first factory in South East Asia.
However both parties did not quote any details so far and said talks were still being held.
In other news, the government has promised that the National Automotive Policy will be unveiled in November. I think they originally said end of September.
Source: Bloomberg
I’ve gathered a list of Proton recalls in the United Kingdoms according to The Automobile Association‘s website.
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Proton has issued a recall for their Proton Waja sedans with chassis numbers PL1CF1SNR4F192489 to PL1CF1SRR5F217757. From what I’ve been told, cars from this batch were produced between June 2004 and January 2005.
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