Archive for Malaysian Makes

Proton will be opening its doors to the public at the Proton Technology Week this weekend. Members of the public will be able to have a look at some of Proton’s R&D facilities and future initiatives at Proton’s plant in the Hicom Industrial Estate, Section 26 Shah Alam.

- 2nd August 2008 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
- 3rd August 2008 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

In the technology area members of the public will be able to get a glimpse of Proton’s upcoming 2009 Proton MPV as well as R&D facilities like styling studios, safety labs, VR rooms, prototype studios, noise labs and others. I’ll most definitely be there to share with you what can be seen on Saturday night. Then you can decide if its worth checking out on Sunday which has longer opening hours.

UPDATE: Sheikh Muszaphar will be there on the 2nd of August, so this may be one chance for you to meet him in person for whatever reason you want.

In the carnival area there will be free go-kart rides, a precision driving showcase by Proton’s R3 team, a remote control car championship, a drifting demo, show cars and a demo of a driverless Lotus. It should be quite interesting as the driverless Lotus has been flown in all the way from the US.

The Lotus Autonomous Vehicle is based off the Lotus Elise and was an entry to the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007. It was developed by the North Carolina State University, Insight Technologies, Advanced Vehicle Research Center and Lotus Engineering. It uses laser measurements sensors, high accuracy GPS, and radar.

For those who have children there’s also a children’s fun area. Look after the jump for videos of the autonomous Lotus Elise.

Click here to read the rest of Proton MPV sneak peek at Proton Technology Week

The Terengganu state government is offering taxi drivers who are currently using old Nissans and Toyotas a subsidy of RM10,000 if they want to replace their aging cars with a new Proton Saga or Proton Wira taxi. For taxi drivers that are already using Proton taxis, the government will reimburse up to RM4,000 for refurbishment costs. This is for taxi drivers who have not repainted their vehicles.

Terengganu Rural Development, Entrepreneur and Cooperative Committee chairman Datuk Mohamed Awang Tera said that this subsidy is part of the state’s efforts to reinvigorate the image of Terengganu taxis, but some say that repelling criticism that the Terengganu is not supportive of the national car is part of the reason.

Datuk Mohamed Awang Tera also revealed that a circuit for car and motorcycle races in Mak Lagam Chukai Kemaman is in final stages of construction.

Iranian automotive company SAIPA and Proton has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enter a strategic partnership that would result in the two companies collaborating in areas of R&D, marketing, sales, JV investments, and supply networks.

The first project will be an inexpensive small sedan that will replace the SAIPA Pride (SAIPA Saba, SAIBA Nasim), a rebadged version of the ancient 1987 Kia Pride which was in turn a rebadged version of the Ford Festiva, or Mazda 121. That generation of the Kia Pride has since been replaced by the Kia Rio.

The new SAIPA compact will likely be based on an existing Proton model or platform similiar to how Chinese automaker Youngman is using the Proton GEN2 for its Europestar RCR. Like China, Iran is a left hand drive market.

It’s interesting to note that one of SAIPA’s subsidiaries (51% owned) Pars Khodro began manufacturing the Dacia Logan in Iran in 2006.

Proton Vendors Association President Dr Wan Mohamed has spoken in defense of allegations that automotive parts sourced from Malaysia can be up to 50% more than those made in Japan. He says that these studies comparing parts prices have questionable materials and methods and even then, they only reveal parts prices between 5% to 15% higher than those in Japan, and in selected sub-sectors only.

According to Dr Wan Mohamed, the Perodua Myvi and Perodua Viva achieved a market price lower than its predecessors because of its 80% parts localisation compared to the Kelisa’s 65% local parts. He argued that if Malaysian parts was indeed more expensive, the cheaper prices for the new Perodua vehicles could not be achieved.

He also cited a few examples on why Japanese parts can be priced cheaper including lower finance charges of as low as 1% per annum for Japanese automotive vendors, lower cost and easy availability of raw materials in Japan, lower mould, die and production line costs, lower amortization and depreciation costs, and a higher degree of automation that Malaysian vendors with lower economies of scale cannot achieve.

He also added that Malaysian vendors have higher levels of wastage due to process rejects due to lower input in R&D but did not go into detail.

Related Posts:
Muhyiddin: Proton’s vendor network needs “discussion”

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Proton has come out to defend itself against allegations that the Proton Perdana V6 is too expensive to maintain to the point that the Terengganu state government decided to replace their 4-year old Proton Perdana V6 Executive cars with a fleet of 14 brand new Mercedes-Benz E200K cars.

Proton says a regular periodical service plus oil filter for the Perdana V6 typically costs around RM200, excluding any other incidental spare part costs. With proper care, original parts and good driving habits, there should not be any major problems with the Perdana V6’s gearbox, and that the recommended service schedule for the Perdana V6 is every 5,000km or every 3 months of usage, whichever comes first.

The big shocker is this: after digging through records, Proton found that there have never been any warranty claims made by the Terengganu state government since October 2004 for one of the cars that supposedly racked up over RM100,000 in repairs. The car was purchased in May 2004. In a previous story the state government claimed two of their Perdana V6 Executive cars incurred repair costs of RM175,229.97 and RM132,357.76 respectively since 2004.

When contacted, a Proton official mentioned that the Perdana V6 comes with a 2 year warranty. Who was maintaining and repairing these cars? Why didn’t the fleet manager claim warranty on defective parts from Proton? The answer could be one of two things:

a) the incidents which incurred repair costs only happened in the car’s third year of service onwards after the 2 year warranty period so no warranty claim could be made
b) this is another case of bocor.

Proton added that it would be seriously looking into this matter and will be contacting the Terengganu State Government to find out service history records for the affected cars and provide necessary assistance.

UPDATE: The DPM said government cars has to be national cars. The Terengganu state government justified its E200K purchase by saying Paragraph 6 (II) of the Treasury Circular No. 1 of 2008 allowed government cars that were national cars or locally assembled cars, and the E200Ks purchased are locally assembled models sourced from Mercedes-Benz Malaysia’s Pekan plant. Datuk Shahrir Samad commented on this, saying that the state government misunderstood the circular. The provision for the purchase of locally assembled cars instead of national cars was only for purchases of 4WD vehicles if necessary as Proton did not offer such vehicles in its model line-up.

Related Posts:
Terengganu will justify in detail E200K purchase
New Mercedes-Benz E200K cars for Terengganu exco

Perodua will spend RM41.8 million to install rear seat belts for a total of 431,262 Perodua cars consisting of the Kancil, Kenari, Kembara, Kelisa and Rusa models. The exercise will begin in 2009 and installation will be conducted at Perodua service centers.

Related Posts:
Compulsory rear seatbelt usage from June onwards
Government to ink deal for free rear seatbelts

MITI Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin says Malaysia is in “no hurry to further liberalise” its automotive sector, but at the same time says Malaysia is fully committed to fulfilling its WTO multilateral commitments. He added that MITI will be looking into ways to ensure Proton remains protected but at the same time improve the National Automotive Policy to be a more progressive policy compared to the “slanted” NAP it is now.

What is desired is a win-win environment where both Proton and foreign brand present can prosper and MITI is trying to achieve that. Industry sources say one of the main reasons foreign investments have shied away from our country is that our policies are too volatile in nature (read: flip flop), making mid to long term planning next to impossible.

Think about it: why do you think certain foreign manufacturers prefer to have ultra long waiting lists rivalling the Perodua Myvi’s at one point record long waiting list rather than expand capacity? Fix that and it is already step one in bringing back the FDI.

Let’s wait and see what the NAP review brings.

Source

Proton has responded to allegations/speculation that Proton’s disposal of its previously owned 57.75% shareholding in MV Agusta for a sum of 1 Euro was not carefully considered with an official statement today, following an announcement last week that Harley-Davidson was going to buy MV Agusta for 355 million ringgit.

In the statement Proton said that due to the conditions and limited options available during that time it was in the best interest of the company to let MV Agusta go based on operational, commercial and financial consideration as at that point of time there was a real danger of MV Agusta falling into bankruptcy.

The international investment bank appointed to advise Proton on its shareholding in MV Agusta had informed Proton that continuing to try to develop MV Agusta into a company with positive cashflow would require significant cash backing from Proton over a long period of time, which would result in the exposure of Proton to significant operational, financial and reputational risks.

Proton also added that from an operations perspective it was advised that there was no way to integrate MV Agusta operations into Proton’s big picture.

Related Posts:
Harley-Davidson buys MV Agusta
Proton disposes of MV Agusta for 1 Euro
Tengku Mahaleel and Tun Dr Mahathir question MV Agusta sale

Minister of International Trade and Industry Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin says Proton’s vendor system will have to be discussed as an independent study conducted by a Japanese company revealed that parts prices in Malaysia were up to 50% higher compared to parts sourced for Japan. He found this to be very odd.

I can think of a few reasons why this is happening - cronyism and monopoly protection could be one reason, the another could be the lack of economies of scale by local component suppliers as they do not have the large orders book of Japanese component suppliers who are supplying components in much larger volumes.

I am pretty sure that the 50% higher price is not because our local components have 50% higher quality.

Source

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Back in May this year Datuk Noh Omar (and his Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development) suggested that Proton develop a new vehicle designed to be used as a taxi similiar to the London Black Cab. The whole idea is that the Malaysian taxi system switch to this new standardized model rather than having multiple models like the Proton Saga, Proton Waja, Naza Citra, Renault Espace, Proton Perdana and even premium Hyundai Sonata and Nissan Cefiro taxis. According to Datuk Noh, this will help “standardize the image of taxis” in Malaysia.

Proton will be looking into the feasibility of the request and if possible, the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development will help “ensure take-up”. Ideally the taxi should also have a factory-fitted NGV system rather than with current taxis which have to retrofit the NGV system as an aftermarket addition to the car. In cars with smaller boots like the Iswara, the NGV tanks can take up a significant amount of boot space depending on the size of the NGV gas tank.

Firstly, the London Black Cab is only used in London. The rest of the UK, or rather the rest of the world uses conventional 4 door sedans or minivans as taxis. Do we really need Proton’s financial records to be plagued with yet another model that has a limited market?

Consumers purchase different types of cars for different needs, so taxis should use different models for different needs as well. A large and heavier taxi with lots of boot space and passenger room powered by a larger engine to move around with that extra capacity will be going around town wasting unnecessary petrol (or NGV) if it carries only one passenger on short trips most of the time.

A much better idea would be for Proton to offer a new taxi based on the new Proton Saga (sources inside Proton say one with a factory-fitted NGV system and a possible upgrade to a 1.6 liter engine is under development) for the purpose of short trips. Longer trips that require more passenger and luggage space can be serviced by larger models converted for taxi purposes like the Kia Rondo Taxi that we saw last year. It can be supplied by Naza Kia Sdn Bhd when it updates the Citra to the next generation Rondo. Just remove the option for the 3rd row of seats and use it for luggage.

On the matter of improving the images of taxis in Malaysia, the government can support this transition to the new models mentioned above by offering financial assistance and loans to taxi drivers for them to be able to afford the upgrade to a new generation of taxis easily. And while we’re at it, cut out the middlemen and give the taxi licenses to the people actually running the taxi services!

There is really no need to waste money and time on the R&D and production of a new specialised single taxi model that will serve nothing more than an ego boost to be able to say that we have our London Black Cab equivalent. It will be the case of the Eye on Malaysia emulating the London Eye all over again.

Related Reading:
Taxicabs of the United Kingdom