Archive for Proton

Proton has appointed a new Director of Quality, 56 year old Dr Wolfgang Karl Eppel. Dr. Epple was previously serving in BMW AG as Vice President of Quality Management R&D. He was also previously in charge of Hybrid technologies, and was also the project leader for the E90 3-Series.

“We believe that with his strong technical and managerial expertise and leadership, Dr Epple would be able to drive the Quality transformation process for the PROTON Group,” said Proton MD Datuk Hj Syed Zainal.

Dr Epple has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. But I wonder how much Dr Epple really can do in Proton. Yes, he can improve the assembly lines. But quality is more than how the car is put together. Proton being Proton, there is always the case of the untouchables… no 23 years of experience in BMW will help with that.

Click to enlarge

This is the latest and probably one of the most final in a series of teaser images released by Proton of the Proton Exora 7-seater MPV. If you visited the Proton Technology Week they held sometime back you would have already seen this in real life, but this version shows some of the different metals used in the structure.

The single-piece front end module is made of plastic (but reinforced by metal in some areas) and the front subframe uses a hydroformed sub-frame technology that contributes to helping the Exora lose a few KGs, which means the CamPro CPS will have less to lug around. Being a single piece, it will be easier for the assembly line workers to install the front end module.

This is how part design can affect quality – other than the actual quality of the component itself, if a component is easier to install there is a higher chance for the assembly line works to always get it right the first time around.

UPDATE: To learn more about the benefits of a hydroformed front subframe, check out this link by Subaru. Thanks to reader Fridz.

Read our previous detailed coverage on the Exora:

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Proton Exora set for 15th April 2009 launch
Proton Exora Prototype Test Drive Experience
Proton Exora MPV: Body Control Module and more juicy details
Proton Exora features list teaser scan
Proton Exora MPV meter panel and dashboard textures in high resolution
Proton Exora MPV teaser scans: flat-folding seats
Proton Exora 7-seater MPV interior details revealed

Detroit Electric and Proton Holdings Berhad signed an agreement today for a supply and manufacturing agreement related to Detroit Electric’s upcoming range of electric vehicles. Detroit Electric is manned by ex-Lotus Engineering CEO Albert Lam and used to have a joint venture with ZAP and Youngman which didn’t happen.

Interestingly Detroit Electric’s ex-partner Youngman is Proton’s customer in China, where it buys the Proton Persona and GEN2 to rebadge as its own cars. Detroit Electric’s deal with Proton is similiar. It will buy the Proton Persona and Proton GEN2 from Proton to fit with an electric motor instead of the CamPro engine, and rebadge them as the Detroit Electric e63 and the Detroit Electric e46 respectively.

The deal is expected to take in RM 2 billion of revenue for Proton over the next 4 to 5 years, with expected volume to be 40,000 cars a year, potentially to grow up to 100,000 cars a year, if Detroit Electric does well in marketing its EVs. They will work with Proton engineers and assemblers to optimise the assembly line. The cars will be built alongside the regular Persona and GEN2 at Proton’s Tanjung Malim plant. The installation of the electric motor and battery and etc will be done off line.

Detroit Electric said it picked Proton as its partner after discussing with a few others because it allowed Proton an easy entry into the market. Given that Lotus Engineering, the company that Albert used to work for, had a part to play in the development of the GEN2 and Persona should clear up any doubts that Detroit has with the capability of the car’s chassis.

More details on the cars to come in a post following this, but the specifications for the cars seem impressive at first sight but because of an extended teh tarik session between the VIPs there, the press conference was extremely delayed and we ended up having less than half an hour to ask questions, so we’re not sure if these specs are finalised or not. If they are finalised, looks good.

The first production cars will hit the road in Q1 or Q2 2010, and target markets are UK, Europe and China. No mention of Malaysia, apparently that is still under study Detroit Electric are targetting markets with incentives for zero emission vehicles or at least fines and taxes for polluting vehicles.

A US market entry is expected towards end-Q3 2010 or beginning Q4 2010 because of the additional work needed to get the Persona and GEN2 homologated in the US. Apparently Detroit Electric will be paying for this, so no expenditure from Proton in that sense.

Detroit Electric is also exploring the possibilities of locating its battery and electric motor plant here. Albert Lam says Malaysia is an attractive place for them because of the availability of engineers as well as the relatively low labour costs.

Coming up next – some specs of the cars. In the meanwhile look after the jump to watch some videos that Detroit Electric gave us.

Click here to read the rest of Detroit Electric to sell electric Persona and GEN2

It appears that Detroit Electric has finally settled on Proton for its partner in producing its electric cars. According to a release by Detroit Electric, the company is set to sign a RM 1.2 billion (US$331 million) agreement with Proton to produce pure electric cars based on protons, beginning with the Proton Persona.

When we attended Detroit Electric’s press preview back in September 2008, we got to sample some electric cars converted by the company, such as an electric Lotus Elise. There were also various prototype electric cars there such as a Persona and a Savvy.

According to Detroit Electric head Albert Lam, a 100% electric powered Persona could be available in the regions of RM 80,000. Detroit Electric will use a production line at Proton’s Shah Alam manufacturing plant to produce the electric Protons.

Read our previous write-ups on Detroit Electric for more info.

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Proton’s first 7-seater MPV the Proton Exora will be launched on the 15th of April 2009, if everything goes well. That is very close, less than a month from now!

Proton has pulled many unexpected but welcome and pleasant moves with the launch of this MPV. The first is of course letting a few journalists try the MPV out. Another is actually letting customers who have taken the leap of faith and placed a RM1,000 deposit for the MPV without even seeing it yet, actually see it!

Yes, a few customers who have placed bookings were invited to Proton’s test track sometime ago for them to sample the MPV that they will soon own. One such customer had a very amusing reason for buying the MPV, as can be read in Business Times interview with some of the buyers:

“I originally wanted to buy a Proton Satria Neo CPS for my wife, who likes driving fast. But to curb her interest for her own good, I decided to get her an Exora. She doesn’t know that I’m buying her the car. If she doesn’t like it, I may have to buy her the Neo CPS,” said T.K. How from Puchong.

Anyway you can check out the rest of the comments here.

Related Posts:
Proton Exora Prototype Test Drive Experience
Proton Exora MPV: Body Control Module and more juicy details
Proton Exora features list teaser scan
Proton Exora MPV meter panel and dashboard textures in high resolution
Proton Exora MPV teaser scans: flat-folding seats
Proton Exora 7-seater MPV interior details revealed

Phase 2 of the Proton GEN2 export and rebadging deal with China’s Youngman group under the Europestar brand is well underway and this is the new styling that Europestar will be applying on their locally assembled GEN2, called the Europestar RCR.

The changes are mostly on the front end with new headlamps, bumper and grille and the rear gets lots of badges including a Lotus Europestar badge, a new rear bumper and a new tail lamp design. The first phase involved CBU cars and styling was identical to the GEN2 other than different badges. The Europestar RCR is also called the Europestar Jingsu.

Source

Now that we’ve covered the initial driving experience with the upcoming 7-seater Proton Exora MPV, let’s get down to some technical details such as the chassis, dimensions, specifications and equipment level of the people mover.

Have a look after the jump for the juicy details.

Click here to read the rest of Proton Exora MPV: BCM and a few more juicy details from the prototype test drive

It was a day of many firsts for me, the day Proton corporate communications invited some of us to test drive a prototype of the new Proton Exora MPV. Yup, we got to drive a pair of Exoras, both the same colour but taped up in the typical black disguise that you’ve seen countless of times on the spyshots featured on this site.

We drove 2 prototype units, one with a manual transmission and one with an automatic transmission, from Proton’s plant in Shah Alam along the KESAS highway, then onto the MRR2, Karak Highway, and then the East Coast Expressway, where we made a U-turn at the Lanchang exit and on back to the Proton plant (we stopped at Karak town for awhile). The first half of my journey was in the manual model while the 2nd half was in the automatic model.

Look after the jump for my experiencing with the Proton Exora, as well as some other information gathered from our session with the engineers.

Click here to read the rest of Proton Exora Prototype Test Drive Experience!

The Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 rally car will be entering the Intercontinental Rally Challenge full-time after its first competition debut late last year. Proton will be the 7th manufacturer in the IRC series, joining the likes of Abarth, Honda, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Skoda and Volkswagen.

“We are absolutely delighted to welcome Proton into the IRC family. The new Satria Neo S2000 has already attracted a lot of praise in its short career to date. I have no doubt that Proton will quickly find success with competitive rally customers on IRC events, as well as on national and regional championships that are based on S2000 technical regulations,” said IRC GM Marcello Lotti.

“The IRC provides the ideal format for manufacturers to showcase their products around the world. We are very excited to register for the IRC this year, alongside many of the leading manufacturers in motorsport. Although we are still developing the Proton, the IRC will provide the perfect opportunity to gauge the competitiveness of the car, and ultimately to take the project forward,” said Proton’s MD Datuk Syed Zainal.

The Satria Neo S2000 made its first rally debut piloted by Bryan Bouffier and co-driver Xavier Panseri in the Rallye Antibes Cote d’Azur leg of the 2008 European Rally Championship in the South of France. In full rally trim, the hatch has the smallest front and the lowest roof height (heh I am not surprised really) of any homologated S2000 car. It’s 2.0 liter engine is derived from Renault’s 1.8 liter unit from the Waja 1.8X and puts out 278 horsepower at 7,600rpm.

The Neo is no doubt one of the most “visible” Proton cars internationally, at least in terms of how much appearances it makes here and there. The Neo is even used in Top Gear Australia as the car used in the “Star in a Bog Standard Car” segment.

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Today’s new Mini Budget stimulus package announced by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak totaled to RM60 billion and as expected, it includes the proposed voluntary scrap scheme.

Anyone who scraps their cars which are older than 10 years will receive a RM5,000 discount to buy a new car, but only a new Proton or Perodua. Those who are looking at Nazas, Kias, Hyundais, Toyota, Honda or even a Chinese vehicle despite being CKD and have invested in Malaysia will not qualify. There is also zero incentive for those looking at a newer 2nd hand car, even if it is a Perodua or Proton.

No further details were announced – it’s best to go to your Proton or Perodua dealer to find out how you can scrap your car for the discount and whether all you’re going to get is RM 5,000 or you’ll get to keep the scrap value amount plus the RM 5,000. Scrapping your car could earn you perhaps RM 1,000 or more so that would be an extra bonus to the RM 5,000, but my guess it you won’t get any extra cash.

Proton already has a scrapping scheme running since the year 2007 called Proton XChange where old cars over 10 years old and owned by the owner for at least 6 months, registered and roadworthy can be traded in for RM 5,000 and so far up to 2,700 of such discounts have been issued. Once a car has been surrendered to Proton under the scheme it will be de-registered from the Road Transport Department and scrapped. As of now, Proton will still run its Proton XChange scheme, so essentially it will be the same thing as the government’s scrapping scheme. When I say the same, it truly is almost the same as part of the RM5k will be born by Proton and Perodua and the rest by the government, as with the Proton XChange program.

Other than the scrapping incentive scheme, the govt will also be pumping in an additional RM 200 million into the Automotive Industry Development Fund.

Click to view enlarged image

These shots are courtesy of reader H+Z who spotted these two Proton Exora MPVs in the new Pyrite Brown colour at the Medan Selera Tanjung Malim near the Padang MDTM parking lot, thanks man! The Exora will be built at Proton’s plant in Shah Alam but I suppose these test units went up for Tanjung Malim for some purpose or another.

There are a few shots after the jump with one that is particularly interesting – while it was hard to snap photos of the interior because of the window’s reflections, there is one clear shot of the automatic transmission gear shifter area. Looks like there’s a gate-shift but no manual override function, which isn’t really important as it’s mostly a novelty on such a car. There are actually 2 Exoras there, and according to H+Z the one with the B461A has a manual transmission while the B462A was automatic.

Look after the jump for more of H+Z’s shots!

Click here to read the rest of Proton Exora in Pyrite Brown spotted in Tg Malim

Click for high resolution image

Here is the latest Proton Exora teaser ad insertion scanned from today’s The Star. There are loads of more details about the MPV, so let me just list them here for those who are kinda lazy to load the full-resolution version of the photo to read the details.

• Campro CPS Engine – Proton claims enough power to transport 7 adults with a full load of luggage while maintaining fuel efficiency. The first part of believable but I’m doubtful about the second part, you can’t have the best of both worlds, not with a regular twincam normally aspirated engine like the Campro CPS. Power output is quoted at 125hp and 150Nm of torque which is equivalent to the output in the Waja CPS, GEN2 CPS and Satria Neo CPS, but some parameters such as CPS and VIM activation points may have been changed, we’ll only find out at the launch.
• Quiet Cabin – Proton claims a quiet cabin because of sound absorption material (they use the word technology).
• Ride & Handling – As usual, the Lotus brand name and their involvement in tuning the suspension settings for Proton cars are being pushed as a selling point for the Exora MPV.
• Small Turning Radius – Proton says the Exora has a turning radius of 5.3 meters. A turning radius is essentially the radius of a small circular turn, or a U-turn that the vehicle is capable of making. The smaller the number, the less space required by a vehicle to U-turn. Note that there are two types of turning radius that can be specified – curb-to-curb or wall-to-wall which is measured either by the distance travelled by the wheels or including the whole car including body overhangs and etc, with the latter being more accurate of course. Let’s compare to some other MPVs – 5.2 meters for the Toyota Passo Sette (this could be the upcoming Perodua MPV), Toyota Wish – 5.3 meters, Nissan Grand Livina – 5.2 meters, Honda Stream – 5.4 meters, Mazda 5 – 5.3 meters, Toyota Alphard – 5.7 to 5.9 meters, Toyota Rush – 5.2 meters.
• Intelligent Electronic Body Control Programme – I’m not sure what this is. Proton calls this an integrated module which allows you to recalibrate electronic components to suit your driving needs such as wipers and signal lights. I am told that this is a central control module which communicates with various components of the car including the examples given. My source tells me this is more of something that works behind the scenes at the moment and there is not much of a user interface to control but I suspect this will allow some form of user controllability in the future such as programmable follow-me home lights and etc just by adding a user interface to it.
• LED tail lamps and brake lights – We already know this from the spyshots.

Read our past coverage of the Proton Exora while we patiently count down to its launch, expected to be in April 2009.

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Proton Exora 7-seater MPV Interior Details Revealed!
Proton Exora – the MPV Proton will launch!
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Click for an enlarged hi-res image

I have managed to source a very high resolution version of the first Proton Exora dashboard instrument panel and steering wheel teaser that Proton put up in the daily papers for you guys, thanks to a source that wishes to remain anonymous. This is probably the original image file for the ad sent to the newspapers and it reveals the full high resolution glory of the textures that Proton have put on the Proton Exora’s dashboard.

The instrumentation panel hood and upper dash seems to have a different texture from the rest of the dashboard and the center dash area where the 2-DIN head unit and air condition controls are also seem to have a sort of brushed look to it. The meter panel can also be seen in full high resolution glory, so check it out!

For other details please read our previous coverage of the Proton Exora MPV, the national carmaker’s first 7-seater 3-row MPV set for an April 2009 launch.

Related Posts:
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Proton Exora 7-seater MPV Interior Details Revealed!
Proton Exora – the MPV Proton will launch!
HOT: Proton MPV 100% fully uncovered
Proton MPV exclusive initial details revealed!
SPYSHOT: 2009 Proton MPV sheds some of its disguise
Proton MPV design registered with UK patent office
SPYSHOT: Proton MPV next to a Nissan Grand Livina

Click image above to view very detailed high-resolution version!

Here’s another teaser of the Proton Exora MPV, a scan courtesy of reader waja2000. We can see a full frontal view of the Proton Exora’s dashboard here which also reveals a gate-type shifter for the automatic transmission.

It also shows the 3 rows of seats which are 60:40 split for the 2nd row and 50:50 split for the third row. It also appears that the seats fold completely flat, which is good. The third row has some form of storage and cupholders integrated into the wheel arch intrusions, and we’re lucky Proton has completely abandoned any attempts to have stylo sporty door panels – they look completely normal even for the rear doors. The third row also has full 3-point seat belts too.

The photo cuts off just before the roof of the MPV so we cannot see the roof-mounted air conditioning vents but these were features that could be seen in the peek-a-boo box of the MPV interior at the Proton Technology Week.

UPDATE: Higher resolution photo added.

Read our past coverage of the Proton Exora below for more juicy details on the first 7-seater 3-row MPV from Proton.

Related Posts:
Proton teases the Proton Exora MPV dashboard
Proton Exora 7-seater MPV Interior Details Revealed!
Proton Exora – the MPV Proton will launch!
HOT: Proton MPV 100% fully uncovered
Proton MPV exclusive initial details revealed!
SPYSHOT: 2009 Proton MPV sheds some of its disguise
Proton MPV design registered with UK patent office
SPYSHOT: Proton MPV next to a Nissan Grand Livina

Click for enlarged image

Proton has been running a series of teaser print ads in the papers of the new Proton Exora, Proton’s first 7-seater MPV. It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before but for the rest of the Malaysian population it offers a rather unobstructed glimpse of the Proton MPV’s dashboard and instrument panel. While the leaked images we saw previously was of a Proton Exora equipped a manual transmission, this particular teaser image was clearly snapped from an Exora with an automatic transmission.

We get to see where the automatic gear position indicator is on the instrumentation panel – the LCD display integrated into the right-side gauge. Whether a manual Proton Exora will be offered or not is still questionable – while we saw a manual version previously, Proton’s teaser pricing only shows 2 automatic variants – an M-Line and a H-Line. With the automatic M-Line having a preliminary price of RM72k, it may be possible that a manual M-Line could dip under RM70k.

More updates on the Proton Exora soon to come – stay tuned! In the meanwhile please read our detailed past coverage on the Proton Exora MPV.

Related Posts:
Proton Exora 7-seater MPV Interior Details Revealed!
Proton Exora – the MPV Proton will launch!
HOT: Proton MPV 100% fully uncovered
Proton MPV exclusive initial details revealed!
SPYSHOT: 2009 Proton MPV sheds some of its disguise
Proton MPV design registered with UK patent office
SPYSHOT: Proton MPV next to a Nissan Grand Livina