Archive for Perodua

Malaysian car manufacturers Proton, Perodua might be able to enter the US market with the upcoming Free Trade Agreement between Malaysia and the USA. Malaysia is currently the USA’s 10th largest trading partner, with transactions worth USD$44 billion in 2-way trade. The (U.S.) National Association of Manufacturers estimates that this could double by 2010. Hopefully car exports might make a small amount of that. We’ll have to see how China cars fare in the US market before we can get an idea of how our cars will perform.

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There’s a small teaser on Perodua’s site, depicting a nice pair of eyes. One of them is silver, and one of them is green. The teaser text says “Sometimes silver, sometimes green” and beckons us to their showrooms on March 19 to find out what it is. That’s this Sunday. Anyone have a clue?

Update: There are rumours that a new Perodua Kelisa special edition facelift will be launched, with a special coat of paint that varies between silver and green when you look at it under different light and angles. Kind of like Nokia’s old phone covers. These are just rumours of course, we’ll find out on Sunday.

Perodua will begin exporting it’s successful Perodua Myvi compact car to Britain from July onwards if everything goes well. The Perodua Myvi has already passed British quality checks and once it’s backlog of 45,000 pending orders have been cleared by July, it will start exporting the car.

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Associated Press via Yahoo News reports that the Malaysian Appeals Court upheld a High Court order against Richard Fong Khee Choong to take down a personal website he set up in October 2002 about his Perodua Kelisa.

Perodua sued Richard Fong for defamation and the court ordered Fong to shut down the website pending resolution of the defamation suit.

Does this mean we can’t complain about our cars anymore without having to fear lawsuits from the car manufacturers? This is outrageous. It makes me wonder, I could be next just in case any car manufacturer with deep pockets decides it doesn’t like my site. What constitutes defamation in this context?

I’ll end this blog post with a quote from United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Update: More details. It was not just bashing the Kelisa. Richard apparently posted on a Geocities website a statement accusing Perodua of bribery to get ISO 9000 certification from the United Kingdom Vehicle Certification Agency.

Read more about the case at Yahoo News.

Jeremy Clarkson shows his frustration on companies that seem to take make cars as a pure for-profit matter… perhaps you could call it cars with no ’spirit’ or ‘passion’. The victim - our very own Perodua Kelisa.

UPDATE: Recently this video has caught the attention of our MPs such as DAP-Tanjong MP Chow Kon Yeow and BN-Ledang MP Hamim Samuri. Click here to read more about that issue, or if you already know all about that, just enjoy the video in this post and find out what the fuss is all about.

Video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Jeremy Clarkson annihilates the Perodua Kelisa

An announcement from Peter for Perodua Kembara owners. Should be quite fun to have a get-together for the family.

Click here to read the rest of Jom Kembara adventure 2005, Sungkai

Mohd Azril Mansor sent in these nice spyshots of a car being tested on roads of Jalan Duta to Damansara Junction taken by his camera phone. I previously blogged about this mysterious car here, and speculated it might be Perodua’s next model under testing phases, perhaps to replace the Kancil. Thanks Azril!

Click here to read the rest of Could this be a Kancil Replacement Model?

Perodua Sales Sdn Bhd hopes to cut down the waiting list time for its vehicles to two to three months from the current five months by Q2 2006.

Perodua currently produces 280-300 cars a day on average and 5000-6000 cars a month. On whether Perodua will be coming up with a new model next year, the company says more market studies would have to be made first before anything can become solid. Maybe a Kancil Replacement Model?

Perodua Marketing & sales division senior general manager Mohamad Shukor Ibrahim said Perodua could not see any impact to it’s sales by the Proton Savvy AMT yet.

Source: Bernama

Proton Holdings Bhd may appoint Syed Zainal Abidin Mohamed Tahir as the new chief executive officer of the company, replacing former CEO Tengku Mahaleel Ariff.

Zainal Abidin is currently the deputy managing director of Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd. (Perodua) and one of the four executive directors of Perodua Auto Corporation, the 49%-owned manufacturing arm of Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) and whose other shareholders are Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd (41%) and Mitsui & Co Ltd (10%).

Zainal Abidin used to work in Proton’s manufacturing division during the group’s early years of operation. He later joined Malaysian Trucks and Bus Sdn. Bhd, rised through the ranks to become CEO and moved on the Perodua to become it’s head of production.

Perodua officials said they’ve heard the rumours, but they are not at liberty to comment. Proton officials could not be contacted.

Source: The Edge Daily, Yahoo Finance

I previously blogged about a Proton Savvy accident here on my blog. I’m sure most of you would like to know how a Perodua Myvi would fare in a collision.

Though the accident in this series of photos are not as ‘hardcore’ as the one in the Proton Savvy accident, it should give you an idea of whether the crumple zone functions, and whether the passanger safety cell has been compromised. Photos thanks to mraha9 from Malacca (photographer) and cbljkkj.

Let’s hope we don’t ever get to see a completely crushed Perodua Myvi - pity the driver.

Click here to read the rest of Perodua Myvi Accident