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Analyzing fuel quality in Malaysia – 3 out of 6 already Euro II compliant for petrol!

February 25, 2007 at 3:44 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Technology, Thoughts

Petronas Station

First of all, thanks to Mat Kamil Awang for the pointer to these documents. The source for the data I am going to use in this article is from a Japanese site hosting presentations from the 4th Asian Petroleum Technology Symposium. This particular presentation is entitled “Clean Fuels for A Clean Malaysian Environment”, by Harlina Firdaus Marzuki and Fazil Mat Isa of PETRONAS Research & Scientific Services.

This is heavy reading but insightful, so bewarned! Continued after the jump…
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Happy CNY to all: Firecracker Worries

February 20, 2007 at 9:55 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Rants, Thoughts

Happy Chinese New Year of the Boar to everyone. Hope you had a good time. Me? For personal reasons, there’s not much celebrations going on except for the exchanging of ang pows, plus my internet chose to be down the entire festive season. The last time my internet died was during Hari Raya. I see a pattern here.

Every Chinese New Year, I am unable to rest without fidgeting around and worrying about my cars. You see, I happen to live in a neighbourhood where most of my neighbours are young parents with little kids. They play lots of firecrackers. While I am not against this, there has been an occasion in the past where fire crackers hit my Nissan Sunny. No compensation was given, and when advised to go play their fire crackers in a playground just down the road, the advice was ignored. Now I am constantly reparking my Proton Perdana and a press car BMW 130i M Sport, especially the latter, further down the road and inside my house whenever I hear firecrackers.

Has any of you had this problem? Has fireworks and firecrackers damaged your car? Do you have the same fears that I do, or am I just weird? I think my paranoia is justified, as it HAS happened before. What do you do with these kind of neighbours?

18 Comments      


Johor Motor Sales

January 28, 2007 at 1:27 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Thoughts

floodedaccord.jpg

With the recent floods in Johor, you can safely say that many people are picking up the pieces and putting their lives back on track. Buying a new car might be the last thing on the minds of Johoreans who probably need to refurbish their homes, buy new clothes, furniture and other necessities.

More after the jump…
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E-plate to be available at JPJ-appointed dealers

January 11, 2007 at 1:01 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Local News, Thoughts

chankongchoy.jpgThere has been some followup news on the e-plate system, basically a wireless RFID MyKad-like system for cars announced in mid-December 2006. The e-plate system is part of the government’s Automated Enforcement System to be implemented by 2010, which will also include 700 new surveillance cameras at strategic locations nationwide. It is assumed that these surveillance cameras will be equipped with e-plate readers, helping enforcement offices detect drivers who break traffic rules such as red lights and double lines.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy reveals more details:

  1. Tamper-proof e-plates will be sealed into the body of vehicles.
  2. Will contain information on driver, chassis and engine number, and model.
  3. E-plates are only available at authorised e-plate makers appointed by JPJ.
  4. Enforcement officers will be equipped with hand-held scanners.

The supplier of the e-plate technology has not been decided yet though, the government is still deciding between 13 proposals from various parties. It is hoped that implementation can be done within this year.

Related Posts:
E-plates: RFID number plate for cars

34 Comments      

Valeo has customers for half camless engine

December 15, 2006 at 7:20 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Thoughts

French automotive engineering company Valeo says that it’s camless engine development project will likely be ready by 2010 or 2011, and it already has a few customers working together with them, though Valeo board member Martin Haub declined to name who the customers are.

Valeo’s camless engine is not a full camless engine, but rather half camless, where only the intake valves are electronically actuated with a camshaft. The exhaust valves are actuated using the traditional camshaft method. Valeo says it took the half camless approach because this gives the Valeo half camless engine 80 percent of the performance of a fully camless engine while keeping costs down by half as much – as it is, a four-cylinder half camless engine is about 300 euros more than a normal camshaft engine. As for benefits over a normal engine, Valeo says the engine has 15% to 20% better fuel economy, as well as 15 to 20% better torque at the low end of rev ranges.

Mercedes Benz already has it’s own camless engine project called KDI EVT, with the resulting cam-less valvetrain engine expected to be supercharged with direct injection. BMW is also researching the technology, but is concerned with cost and durability, says BMW general manager for calibration V8 engines Christian Bock. Bock says the technical barrier to camless engines are not the valve actuators themselves but rather the sensors to make it all work with precision. Currently sensors are no accurate enough and have engine-life durability and reliability issues.

Look after the jump for a diagram from Valeo explaining how their electronic valve actuators work.

Related Posts:
Camless Solenoid Valve Engines
KDI EVT in the new 2008 C-Class
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9 Comments      

LMG Tourer with Hydroxene technology

August 15, 2006 at 2:44 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, LMG Auto, Local News, Malaysian Makes, Thoughts

lmg_tourer.jpg

Some of you may remember a piece of news in July where a team of Universiti Sains Malaysia researches led by Dr Syamsul Rizal Abd Shukor came up with a way to produce hydrogen in a system compact enough to be fitted into a car. The system involved using waste aluminium metal and sodium hydroxide to separate water into it’s components – hydrogen and oxygen.

While I’m not sure if the new Hydroxene system in LMG’s new pick-ups and SUVs are based on the results of this USM research, it works very similiarly.
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112 Comments      

A question for car owners

March 26, 2006 at 10:50 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Blogging, Cars, Thoughts

I would like to pose a question to any of you who purchased a car recently. The government is unhappy that car prices have not been reduced much, only in the tune of 2-5% or at most 5-10%.

If you purchased a Toyota Camry (used as an example) last year, and Toyota cuts the price of the Toyota Camry by 15-20%, how would you feel? Would your car’s value drop in the second hand market? And if yes, would you be angry? Would your brand loyalty to Toyota be affected if Toyota was the only one who gave a big price cut for their cars? Would your brand loyalty to Toyota be affected if all car manufacturers did similiar price cuts? Or would you be okay with it, considering it is an effect of the National Automotive Policy?

There are no right or wrong answers. It’s a matter of your own opinion, and I hope everyone will agree to disagree in case differences of opinions occur in the discussion. Also feel free to give your thoughts on what you think of the NAP in general, and the after-effects so far. The prices of cars in Malaysia is truly a complicated thing. Such a delicate balance must be kept.

117 Comments      

Happy New Year 2006

December 31, 2005 at 8:35 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Thoughts

I’d like to wish all my readers a happy new year. 2005 has been an interesting year for the automotive industry. Pretty exciting. We had new launches from both our largest national car manufacturers, the Perodua Myvi and the Proton Savvy. We had the controversial AP Saga involving Rafidah Aziz, Tun Dr. M and the AP Kings. A new National Automotive Policy. We saw Proton undergo a major management change, and the possibility of a take-over by Volkswagen AG.

Let’s hope 2006 will bring us more exciting developments. I’m sure everyone is eagerly awaiting the new Proton Satria Replacement Model. Sightings of a K-car being test driven which might be a Perodua have also been spotted, though these are all just speculations.

Petrol prices have gone up multiple times this year and currently stands at 1.62 a litre for RON97. There are speculations of another hike REAL soon, so be sure to adjust your finances in preparation for it.

As for imported makes, I think a replacement for the current Honda Civic is also due very soon since if I recall correctly, they’ve stopped production of the older 1.7 VTEC and 2.0 i-VTEC models to clear out the stock. No immediate indications of an update for the Altis or Camry yet. The Accord has been facelifted in Japan and the US but not in Malaysia, fine by me as I don’t like the new facelift anyway. The Sentra has been facelifted again. Nissan has to do alot better than this for their sedans. They seem to be focusing on the X-Trail and the Frontier for the moment. They still don’t have a proper competitor for the City and the Vios. Both the City and Vios have been facelifted in 2005.

Happy trails and enjoy 2005′s last night, wherever you may be spending it. I’m likely going to spend it at home. Already partied enough last night at the Malaysian Press Club’s pre-New Year party. Remember, don’t drink and drive. I’ve had my fair share of that experience.

47 Comments      

National Automotive Policy draft tomorrow

October 18, 2005 at 10:02 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Local News, Thoughts

There are a lot of people who feel that we just shouldn’t have had an automotive industry in the first place. Since Proton’s birth in 1983, the normal rakyat with average income have been forced to buy Protons. This is because of government protection in the form of high taxes on foreign makes.
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81 Comments      

Google Wifi

September 21, 2005 at 4:24 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Technology, Thoughts

Google has launched a free Wi-Fi service in San Fransisco. Together with it’s Wi-Fi service, it has also launched a free VPN service so that Wi-Fi users can encrypt their over-the-air data.

Since their e-mail service is called Gmail, I wonder why they didn’t name their Wi-Fi hotspot G-Spot.

13 Comments