Archive for Proton

Proton M.D. Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir told press today that Proton would be reducing the prices of it’s cars across the board by 2% to 5%. Proton also aims to increase it’s local market share from 41.4% currently to 45.8% by the end of the financial year March 31 2007.

The new prices will see cars like Waja 1.6 Campro (A) being sold at RM60,700, Perdana V6 at RM106,888, Gen2 1.6 (A) at RM55,641 and the Proton Savvy 1.2 at RM42,916.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak also said today that the government was developing a new set of policies consistent with World Trade Organisation rules and regulations to continue supporting Proton. However he said Proton cannot expect to operate in a shielded environment forever and must undertake internal measures to improve the company’s competitiveness in the increasingly open market.

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A report by New Straits Times says Proton expects to launch a new model in April. This could most likely be the SRM as I don’t think there’s any possibility of a Perdana based on the Mitsubishi 380 to be launched in such a short time frame. If you read the article, you would notice the bad reporting by the journalist, who said the Proton Savvy uses a Campro engine. Journalists should really do their homework.

Proton is expected to announce a non-exclusive alliance with a Chinese firm this week. At one point, Proton’s board had thought about an exclusive partnership with one firm, but Datuk Azlan Hashim told reports that Proton’s board had re-thought the situation and consluded it was better to have several strategic partners in multiple areas like products, components, market access and other activities. Are we looking at a “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” philosophy being put into effect here? The partnership is expected to be finalised in April.

Previously there were rumours on tie-ups between Proton and Chery, as well as Proton and Jinhua Young Man related to car assembly in China. There were not much follow-up on the Chery rumour, however StarBiz reports today that Proton would be selling CKD kits of cars like the Proton GEN-2 to Jinhua QingNian. I think it’s safe to assume Jinhua QingNian is Jinhua Young Man as they are both from ZheJiang.

It is hoped that this partnership will boost Proton’s economies of scale. Jinhua QingNian currently builds luxury coaches and trucks, and hopes to enter the passanger car market with Proton’s CKD kits. The cars will be marketed under Jinhua’s own brand and logo in China. If all goes well and the CKD kits have good sales in the China market, it will definitely improve Proton’s profitability as economies of scale improves and cost per part goes down. Good move, Proton.

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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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Here are the latest spy images for the Proton Satria Replacement Model or Proton SRM24 which have been in testing phases for quite some time already. These photos were taken while the Proton SRM was parked in a parking lot, with it’s driver nowhere to be found. Because of that the photographer managed to get shots of the interior. Spyshots are after the jump!

Click here to read the rest of Satria Replacement Model Spyshots with Interior

A team of Proton engineers met with Mitsubishi officials at Mitsubishi Australia’s Adelaide assembly plant last week to discuss the possible import of the Mitsubishi 380 large sedan into Malaysia. This followed the shipment of a single Mitsubishi 380 here last month for climate and government regulation approval testing.

The Mitsubishi 380 is a large sedan based on the North American Mitsubishi Galant and is powered by a 3.8 liter SOHC V6 engine making 235 horsepower at 5250rpm and 343Nm of torque at 4000rpm. Malaysia and other Asia Pacific countries as an export market could relieve the pressure that Mitsubishi Australia is facing as sales on their home grounds for the car isn’t very encouraging.

More details on the Mitsubishi 380 in my previous post.

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The world’s 2nd largest automotive supplier* with sales of more than RM103.36 billion Delphi Corp has offered help to Proton in terms of widening it’s vehicle base and pushing for export markets.

The Michigan-based company supplies automotive parts to companies like Porsche, Mercedes Benz, GM, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Honda, Audi and Volkswagen. It employs 185,000 employees worldwide and has 164 manufacturing sites, 41 joint ventures, 53 customer centres cum sales offices and 33 technical centers in 38 countries. It has a plant here in Kuala Terengganu manufacturing wire harnesses for Proton.

Delphi Packard Electric Asia Pacific managing director Majdi Abulaban said Delphi is keen on being Proton’s strategic team mate, sharing it’s global know-how in designing and manufacturing quality components for the automotive industry. It is hoped that working together would result in better economies of scale which translates into lower costs and better quality cars for Proton.

BTW the last I heard of Delphi, it was bankrupt.

* - According to Automotive News list of Top 100 global suppliers.

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The Edge Daily carries a story with the main points of the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation signed between Proton and Mitsubishi.

1. Product development of new Proton vehicles
2. Supply of components between Proton and Mitsubishi
3. Technical support for production, engineering and quality control from Mitsubishi to Proton and Proton’s vendors

How will Proton benefit from this partnership?

1. Diversified product range with shorter time to market for development
2. Plug holes in production line-up, mainly for MPV and luxury car segments
3. Use of Mitsubishi parts
4. Technical support and QC help by Mitsubishi

What’s in it for Mitsubishi?

1. Manufacturing facilities at Proton Tanjung Malim, which is sort of good for Proton too as QC at the factory will have to be up to Mitsubishi’s standards.

Here are some more updates on Proton’s possibilities on entering a joint venture with another car manufacturer.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp issued a statement debunking speculation that it might jointly set up a plant here in Malaysia with Proton to assemble or manufacture Mitsubishi cars.

As for the failed Volkswagen partnership, Proton officials shared their side of the story. Proton said it entered talks with Volkswagen originally to explore possibilities of a mutual benefit collaboration, but Volkswagen started talking about a takeover. Proton had considered it, but not without conditions, which obviously caused the entire deal to fail.

Seems everyone is hardcore denying considering going to bed in Proton to protect share prices or some other reason.

Proton Holdings has sold it’s 57.57 percent stake in MV Agusta Spa to an Italian company Gevi Spa. Gevi Spa will assume MV Agusta’s debts and working capital requirements totalling 139.44 million euros, as announced today to Bursa Malaysia by Proton Holdings as part of it’s non-core asset divesting exercise.

Interesting to note that Proton originally acquired MV Agusta Spa last year on July 7 2004 for 70 million Euro, and finally sold it for a token sum of 1 Euro (RM4.48).

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