Archive for Proton

The Edge as always has a very interesting and revealing interview with Proton’s managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir. The ex-Perodua man has been at Proton’s helm for about 4 years now and I think most of us agree that under his leadership Proton has taken a turn for the better.

Here are some key points in the story:

• Chinese automaker Youngman’s Europestar brand is building a new car, engineered by Lotus. It uses components carried over from the GEN2. Lotus is being paid about US$20 million for the work, and Proton also gets licensing for this new car’s platform once it rolls out. This could be the car we saw yesterday.
• Proton’s new model investments will be in core models. Models with lower volumes such as a Perdana replacement will be through collaborations. There is no sense in spending half a million ringgit investing in a Perdana when it will not get the kind of sales the Saga (5.5k to 6k) and Persona (3.5k to 4k) currently gets.
• The Campro’s lifecycle will end in 2014, after of which a new engine will replace it. Proton is currently looking at two different options, but are still looking at other OEMs. They hope to decide where the new engine will come from by next year.
• Proton will be consolidating its plants to Tanjung Malim in 3 years time. The Shah Alam plant’s land can be utilised better than its current use as it is appreciating in price now. A sale to Sime Darby?
• The Waja replacement model will be coming next year. The Perdana will come in 2011. We will get an all-new global model to replace the Persona in 2012. That would mean the Persona will be replaced after a 5 year lifecycle (well, it’s longer actually if you consider the Persona a GEN2). Proton plans to continue a typical Japanese 5 year lifecycle for all its products, but this could go to 7 years (like premium conti lifecycles) at most.
• The new 2012 Persona replacement model will be styled by an Italian company instead of Proton’s design team led by Azlan Othman.

Read the full interview here.

The sohu source seems quite certain that this is a Proton/Europestar car. One possibility that I can think of is this could be a Chinese market only car that Proton, Lotus and Europestar are working on together.

UPDATE: Thanks to all readers that pointed this out – this is a restyled Proton GEN2 for Europestar. More updates later – Source

Click here to read the rest of Europestar develops own styling for GEN2

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I’ve managed to obtain photos that show a closer view of the new Proton Turbo engine that our King and Queen previewed at Lotus in the UK just a little more than a week ago. The photo doesn’t really tell us much but I think there are some details that have been revealed just by looking at the engine.

We get to see the top of the engine, the intake, as well as abit of the turbocharger peeking out from behind the block. The top of the engine looks slightly different from the Campro and Campro CPS engines. It looks more similiar to the Campro engine though because of the shape of the spark plug cover, but there are some minor differences in shapes. I’m not sure what the Campro IAFM looks like without the engine cover.

I’ve heard many times before that the new Proton Turbo engine will not have functions such as CPS which mean higher costs. Forced induction that is properly tuned can provide sufficient torque over a wide RPM spread thus you do not have to do funky things to improve airflow such as variable valve lift or timing. The turbocharged Campro engine that we saw in the Proton Exora Prestige earlier this year was also based on a regular Campro and not the Campro CPS.

Finally, I think we gotta also keep an open mind that this might not even be the production Campro Turbo engine in the first place. It may be just a bolt-on prototype similiar to the one in the Exora Prestige Turbo. But it sure is nice getting to see one part of what the Royal Family managed to see. After all, Proton is our national carmaker and whether you love them or hate them, I find that almost everyone wants to know everything about them!

Related Posts:
Proton Exora Turbo based on the Exora Prestige
Royal Family check out the Proton Campro Turbo Engine

Click here to read the rest of A closer view at the new Proton Turbo engine

A turbocharged Campro engine in an Exora Prestige we saw back in July…

Proton unveiled a turbocharged 1.6 liter engine to selected press in Norwich, UK earlier today while our King and Queen His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda The Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Wathiqu Billah Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin Ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Mahmud Al-Muktafi Billah Shah and Her Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda The Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah were visiting the Lotus headquarters in UK.

The new turbocharged engine is said to have the power capacity of a 2.0 liter engine. No precise figures were given but we can make an educates guess – 2.0 normally aspirated would mean around 140 to 150 horsepower. Usually with a turbocharged engine, a 150 horses figure would probably be accompanied by 220Nm to 240Nm of torque. This should put performance at a similiar level with the turbocharged 1.6 liter in the Peugeot 308 Turbo, which is very nice since the peak torque kicks in at low RPMs.

VIDEO: Bulletin Utama segment on the Proton Turbo engine

Source

70 engineers worked on the engine project. According to Proton, the engine was developed in collaboration between Proton and Lotus Engineering, with active involvement of Malaysian engineers and vendors. I actually so happened to meet a few young Proton engineers at a UK visa application center in KL and they were applying for a UK work visa for a certain project, so this must have been it

Producing the engine took 18 months from approval of engineering proof of concept. The proof of concept could have been that turbocharged engine we saw in the Exora. The engine was designed for high torque applications, which will provide good driveability in larger Proton cars such as the Proton Exora. Proton Director of Engineering Tajul Zahari said the engine is RON95 compatible. Apparently the engine will be ready by 2011, so we should see it in Protons by then.

It’s confirmed – Karamjit will not be driving the left hand drive Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 at the Rally Indonesia 2009 and the official reason given by Proton is that he is not available. Alister McRae will be joined by navigator Bill Hayes in Indonesia, which will host the 6th round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championships (APRC).

“I have had the opportunity to test the Satria Neo S2000 in the UK recently and am very pleased with the performance of the car. I will certainly be looking forward to competing in the Proton at the Rally of Indonesia against some of the best drivers in the region.” said Alister Mcrae.

The press release did not say if this was a one time change or something more permanent, but I have a feeling Proton requires better results for the car for its own return on investment targets. They couldn’t switch the car so they switched the driver instead.

Up north in Europe, Team Proton Europe is tackling the current round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge right now (24th to 26th September). Performance of the car piloted by Guy Wilks and Phil Pugh in the previous IRC leg in Spain was described as ‘promising’, scoring as good as joint fourth place on SS15 but ended up crossing the finish line in 19th place out of a grid of 80 entries.

The rally was won by Skoda’s Jan Kopecky, who are trailing Peugeot’s Kris Meeke by one point with only two rounds remaining.

Click here to read the rest of McRae and Hayes to pilot Neo S2000 in Indonesia

The Australian name for the Proton Saga has been announced – Proton’s smallest sedan will be offered down under as the Proton S16. I assume this is supposed to stand for Saga 1.6, not sure what’s wrong with the Saga name. The S16 will go on sale from the 1st of November for under AU$13,000 with a manual transmission, but Australian dealers will get test drive units in October for anyone who is interested in the car.

Under the hood will be the Campro IAFM engine that powers the Persona here in Malaysia, producing 110 horsepower at 6,500rpm and 148Nm of torque. The car’s fuel consumption is rated at 6.3 liters per 100km on the ADR (Australian Design Rules) combined cycle.

This is unconfirmed but according to some Aussie news sites the Australian spec car is expected to have dual SRS airbags for the front driver and passenger, which means it’ll be one of the highest spec versions of the Saga available so far, as the top of the line Sage in Malaysia thus far has only been available with a driver airbag.

What’s even more interesting for Australian buyers is that the price tag could possibly go even lower with the introduction of a 1.3 liter Campro engine option, which will only be available from February 2010 onwards. It’s not sure if the 1.3 liter car will continue to be called the S16, or receive a more apt name like the S13.

Talks of some kind of business deal between Proton and Volkswagen have surfaced in the papers again, this time on a car assembly deal for passenger cars without taking up stake.

Volkswagen have already identified a base in Indonesia for the Touran MPV, but they have also been looking for a way to assembly their passenger cars here in Malaysia. Other than Proton, DRB-HICOM was also a potential partner name that came up in the past.

Datuk Syed Zainal confirmed sometime last week that Proton was indeed in talks with a foreign car company and hoped that something can be agreed upon before the end of the year. He did not mention which company this is, but in a Reuters report a Volkswagen spokesperson managed to be reached for comment and he confirmed that they were in talks with Proton. According to the spokesperson, the confirmed plant in Indonesia was not sufficient to serve the entire ASEAN market – it looks like they’re planning to come to this region in a big way!

These talks with Proton could be the reason why the reviewed NAP announcement has been pushed to the end of next month instead of being announced this month as previously indicated. “It’s a complicated matter. We cannot rush,” said MITI minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed. Proton is of course at the center of the Malaysian automotive industry, thus most decisions will actually surround the company.

The foreign car company was referred to by Datuk Syed Zainal as potentially Proton’s “missing link”, which means the talks could extend beyond Proton being a contract assembler for Volkswagen – Proton could be asking to license or collaborate on certain Volkswagen tech such as platforms or engines, especially diesel engines!

Proton will be launching a 1.6 liter IAFM variant of the Saga in Australia soon (November 2009 ETA) and has put up a teaser website for it at newsedan.com.au. It won’t be called the Saga in Australia though – a new name will be picked. Prices will begin at under AU$13,000, or under RM37,895 for the 1.6 liter manual, but an automatic option as well as a smaller engine (likely the 1.3) will be available from February 2010 onwards.

Proton hopes to be profitable in this 2009/2010 financial year and so far things look good with a profit before tax of RM64 million for Q1 of the current financial year. Revenue grew by 8% to RM1.85 billion compared to RM1.71 billion in the same period last year. These improved results caused Proton shares to rise about 2.45% to RM2.93 per share.

Proton says this is thanks to a better product mix (Exora, Exora, Exora!) even though Proton sales had actually dropped 2% (now at 39,327 units) compared to the same period last year (39,888 units), but this isn’t too bad considering the total industry volume itself had actually dropped by 11% during the same period. There have been a total of 18,000 orders for the Exora since order taking began up to the 15th of August 2009. The Exora managed 1,600 bookings in Indonesia since its launch recently. Proton currently holds 31% market share of the TIV sales as of June 2009.

In the exports area the company said it aimed to export about 20,925 units this year compared to 18,428 units last year. This is still a small percentage of cars compared to the numbers sold in Malaysia but Proton intends to shift to a more export-centric organisation. Proton also wants to sell more CKD export cars instead of the usual CBU cars currently sold, but CKD usually only starts to become viable when volume increases to an amount that can sustain an assembly line for the CKD packs. Proton has started out with CKD models in China and Iran. GEN2 CKD operations in Iran by Zagross Khodro began in April 2009 and CKD pack supply to Youngman in China have also commenced.

What’s coming up for Proton? Some details were revealed at the Q&A session after its latest AGM and others are revealed in their annual report for the last financial year. What should be exciting for you guys is a new car set for introduction in the second half of next year. Proton would not say which car this is but this car is widely rumoured to be a model based on the Mitsubishi Lancer. Manual transmissions will be offered to keep the entry price point low so this should be very good news for those who want to do their own shifting action in a sporty sedan. A page in the annual report also reveals that a facelift for the Persona is targeted to go into production by the end of 2009.

Further down the launch schedule will be a new car that will be the fruits of a project called the Global Small Car Programme. Proton has revealed that this will be a small and trendy hatchback with a small capacity engine that meets international emission standards. When this is launched, its goodbye time for the Savvy. Proton’s next generation of powertrains (Campro replacement?) are also being developed together with Lotus as part of a program called the Phoenix Project.

In the alternative fuels department, Proton will be skipping hybrid cars and fuel cell cars and will be focusing on electric cars. There was a hybrid system installed in a GEN2 called the Lotus EVE Hybrid Concept that combined the 1.6 liter Campro engine with a 40hp electric motor. From the looks of it, this will probably remain a technology showcase by Lotus to promote its engineering decision.

Proton currently has two prototype electric vehicles – one based on the Saga and another on the Persona. You’ve seen the Saga EV featured here on this blog. It is an EV focused on economy and the 10.1 second 0-100km/h acceleration time (despite 168hp) is a testament of this, but the Persona EV prototype is a totally different animal – it has been developed as a performance EV concept. This likely means larger and higher capacity batteries but a much more powerful electric motor to match!

Look after the jump for a copy of the annual report.

Click here to read the rest of Proton posts RM64 million Q1 profit before tax

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The latest news from the land down under is that Proton will be phasing out the current Wira-based Proton Jumbuck (known as the Proton Arena in Malaysia) over the next few months in preparation for the launch of an all-new Jumbuck.

According to the story, the new Jumbuck/Arena will be based on an existing passenger car platform. It would make sense for Proton to base the new Jumbuck on the Exora’s platform and they’ve actually hinted at this during the Exora’s R&D showcase earlier this year. The rendering you see above was provided by Proton and shows what a new Jumbuck/Arena based on the Exora could look like.

The Exora’s platform was designed to be modular and flexible with even the option of changing the rear torsion beam into a multi-link setup for more versatility in tuning the suspension behaviour for passenger car usage.

Related Posts:
Proton Exora platform to spawn new models