Apparently Perodua played a teaser video for its upcoming Perodua D46T 7-seater MPV based on the Toyota Passo Sette at the SMIDEC exhibition this month!
Continue reading for the full scoop on the new Perodua MPV! Click here to read the rest of Perodua MPV D46T unveiled fully undisguised in SMIDEC teaser, launch in November!
The Proton Saga 1.6 liter B-Line with manual transmission is now available for public booking on Proton Edar’s website. The B-Line M/T listed at RM39,000 is the sole 1.6 liter model on sale, and is only available in Chilli Red. That’s about roughly a RM3k premium over the 1.3 liter B-Line M/T.
No specs for the B-Line 1.6L M/T have been made known on the site but based on various ads placed on online classifieds: it has power windows for the front, air conditioning, an alarm system and a CD player so it should satisfy the bare requirements of creature comforts, but with no safety features as there is no airbag.
The car comes with steel wheels so if you want to spend some money you can quickly junk them and put something else on to match the more powerful engine.
Interestingly the cheapest and most affordable N-Line which was priced at RM31.5k seems to be completely gone from Proton Edar’s website now.
It is not unusual for car manufacturers to launch a car model with the very baseline model priced without profit or even at a loss to draw customers to showrooms, and then later get the sales staff to try to sell them the more profitable trim levels. This baseline model will then be phased out later.
Also, is it just me or have the prices changed since launch?
Proton is in the red again for the financial year 2008/2009 after a short stint of profitability for the 2007/2008 financial year. Profit of RM144 million in the previous financial year dropped to a loss of RM338 million for the financial year ended 31st March 2009.
Chairman Dato’ Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh says the results are primarily due to impairment of property, plant and equipment (PPE) and inventory write-down of certain models impacted by volume contraction, and is reflective of the current global economic condition.
He added that the second half of the financial year was dversely affected by the accelerated amortisation of certain dies and jigs as well as the increased costs of components and raw materials arising from higher foreign currency exchange rates, particularly, the Japanese Yen and the US Dollar.
He noted that despite the loss, revenue had actually improved from RM5.62 billion in FY2007/2008 to RM6.49 billion in FY2008/2009, an increase of RM864.98 million. Proton currently has a cash balance of RM899.5 million, down from RM1,173.9 million in FY2007/2008. They also expect to receive a RM81 million R&D grant through the National Automotive Policy for the financial year.
“As a fully fledged automotive company, we spent a substantial amount on the development of new models such as the Proton Exora and Lotus Evora during the year. While this had affected our cash reserves, we will be able to recover when the cars are sold,” said the group’s managing director Dato’ Haji Syed Zainal Abidin.
Dato Haji also adds that Proton intends to double their total sales volume by 2010, with the bulk of improvement coming from improvements in export market sales. The Proton Exora will be launched in Indonesia in July 2009. Proton sold 156,845 cars in FY2008/2009, up from 139,942 in FY2008/2007. Out of that amount, 16,746 or just over 10% were export cars and 2,280 were Lotus cars.
In other Proton related news, the Proton Exora is now eligible for the Proton Xchange programme effective immediately, where customers will be able to trade in their old cars with minimum lifespan of 10 years for a RM5,000 discount.
Look after the jump for the full Q4 results announcement by Proton. Click here to read the rest of Proton posts RM338 million FY2008/2009 loss!
A Toyota Passo Sette 3-row MPV or rather the upcoming new Perodua MPV was spotted by reader Goniothalamus on his KL-Bentong journey.
The compact people mover had barely any disguise on, with only a few simple black tapes covering key identification marks such as the badges. In fact looking at the position of the badges that are covered up and the typical Japanese rear window black tinting, it could potentially just be an actual Passo Sette from Japan (compare to this photo), which means this car doesn’t necessarily belong to Perodua.
Toyota Passo Sette Interior
Perodua MD Datuk Syed Hafiz has previously indicated that the Perodua MPV (codenamed Perodua D46T for now) will be sold with a price tag of between RM57k to RM66k and a launch date has been set for somewhere in Q3 this year, which would be anywhere between July to September.
It has already been previously spotted in Malaysia from as early as April this year (check out Perodua MPV photo and video spyshot) and Perodua has also exhibited the Perodua MPV’s interior in Johor.
Look after the jump for all the spyshots. Click here to read the rest of Perodua MPV or Toyota Passo Sette spotted again!
The Proton Saga will be entering the Australian market in early 2010. Proton will sell the Saga with a 1.6 liter Campro engine, an engine size up from the 1.3 liter consumer version we get here.
Proton Cars Australia says the Proton Saga will be Australia’s cheapest sedan, which won’t necessarily mean it will be Australia’s cheapest car as most cheap cars are 5-door hatches, which would not lay claim to the cheapest sedan title.
According to Proton Cars Australia, there are currently 25,000 Protons on the road down under right now and hopefully the new Saga will increase those numbers.
While a 1.6 liter version of the Proton Saga isn’t officially on sale in Malaysia yet, there have been classifieds ads appearing all over (such as this) advertising limited units of a Saga 1.6 for sale. The specs include a 1.6 Campro IAFM engine with a 5-speed manual gearbox. The ads also say it is only available in solid red which leads me to believe these are the taxi cars being sold to consumers who want it.
Prices range from between RM39k to RM43k from what I’ve seen and the equipment is minimal, with steel wheels and no airbags, but there are front power windows.
I sent a query to Proton when the RON95 introduction was officially confirmed on whether their engines would be compatible with the new fuel. From what I understand from reading some comments on this site and on other forums apparently there are some Proton manuals that call for RON97 fuel to be used. So I think it’s best to get an official answer from the manufacturer.
Proton’s powertrain department have tested all of their engines including the Mitsubishi models and have stated that all Proton cars can run on RON95, despite what they’ve stated in their manuals (why???). This includes the old carburetor cars, the Renault engines, and the new Campro CPS engine.
There is only one issue. They acknowledge some of the old carburetor cars may experience knocking depending on the condition of the engine and needs to go into the Proton service center to adjust the engine’s ignition timing.
This happens to carburetor engines because a carburetor cannot inject fuel as accurately as a fuel injection system, thus sometimes the air-fuel mixture is too rich. All the unburned fuel results in lots of carbon deposits, which change the shape of the combustion chamber and causes pre-mature ignition, which results in engine knock. Any high mileage engine may also have the risk of carbon deposit build up.
So if you have an old Wira or Satria with a carburetor, you are at a higher risk of engine knocking if you use RON95, if you didn’t have it already with RON97 of course. Any other high mileage car is also at a risk because of carbon build-up that can happen over time, even with a fuel injection system. For those that are a little adventurous, RON95 is now available at the Petronas stations in Precinct 9 Putrajaya so you can go try it out.
And of course, saying your cars can run on a certain fuel octane grade without knocking is one thing, but it’s another to say it would run at the same level of performance and fuel economy because of the ignition timing adjustments, whether manual or automatic.
If you would like to learn more about what RON really is, read the related link.
Related Post:
What is RON (Research Octane Number)?
Click for enlarged image
Reader acesDSI spotted this Kia Forte with JPJ plates roaming the streets of Batu 3 Shah Alam heading towards Section 20 Shah Alam. It looks like the good-looking Kia Forte is going to be launched soon, and sources in Naza say it’s most likely to be offered in CKD locally assembled form.
Although we cannot really see the badge on the car because of the resolution of the photos, the photographer said the car had Naza badges on, so maybe what we’re going to get is a Naza Forte instead of a Kia Forte.
Click for enlarged image
There are positive and negative points about that, firstly having a Naza badge on is likely to give the company more bargaining power with duties resulting in a lower price, which is ultimately beneficial for consumers if a simple badge swap (that could even be supplier by showrooms) will “fix” it. Secondly it will stop potential customers from waiting for Naza Kia to Naza-ize a Kia Forte in anticipation of further price drops.
If the Naza Forte is to become a proper bread and butter sedan for Naza Kia it has to replace the Spectra in the product range so expect it to come with a 1.6 liter engine, with larger engines reserved for the Kia Koup 2-door coupe which I tested in South Korea recently.
Proton Edar has signed a new Master Dealership agreement with EON for the sale and service of Proton cars in Malaysia. The new agreement is to rationalise the sales and distribution network.
This new agreement will extend for a period of 5 years from the 1st of July 2009. Here are the terms and conditions of the new agreement:
Take note that EON currently has sixty five (65) sales dealers and one hundred and fifty two (152) service dealers. It will have to rationalise its network to meet the conditions offered above. The last point in particular is quite interesting. It looks like Proton wants EON dealers to focus on selling Proton cars only.
With the signing of the new agreement, all EON sales and service dealers will undergo a migration process into the Proton Edar sales and service network with effect from 1 July 2009. Subsequent to the migration process, EON will no longer have any sub-dealers (sales & after sales) for Proton vehicles after 31 December 2009.
Under the consolidation exercise, EON dealers will migrate to Proton Edar within the next six months. During that period, EON’s sales and services dealers will be evaluated on their performance, compliance and business ability. This exercise is to streamline the dealer network into a smaller and stronger dealer network.
The Naza Group of Companies wants to move from being a family owned institution of management to that of an organization of 23 companies adhering to a multinational organization culture of focusing on improvements.
The latest in a series of steps taken is an effort to “upgrade” its human resources or staff – a signing with Motorola University, where 1,000 of the Naza Group’s employees will be trained and developed to improve their skills focusing on increasing productivity and revenue. The training will be provided by Motorola University based on programs that Motorola has developed on the way of becoming a Fortune 500 company.
Naza will offer these programs to employees of all 23 Naza companies under SM Faisal, which will include leadership development, lean manufacturing, customer driven total solutions and the Motorola Six Sigma Program series.
There are many big companies who are actually family-owned but are managed and run by trained professionals. One example very close to Naza is the BMW group, which has been majority (about 46%) owned by the Quandt family since the 50s. It is a proven formula that works.
The Proton Exora has been launched and it won’t be long until the car is handed out to members of the media. An MPV is quite a different animal from a regular car.
People buy it for different reasons, and most rational people just want a big box to move people or stuff around. I don’t have a bunch of kids to lug around as of yet so perhaps it is better if you guys share with me, what would you like me to check out in a write-up of the Proton Exora? Please do share your questions in the comments section of this story and I will try my best to answer all of them in a future test drive story.
Please keep the comments here to questions only. To share your opinion or showroom experiences of the Proton Exora there is the launch story.
