Earlier in the month, it was reported that Proton was studying the possibility of a partnership with one or more China-based car manufacturers in an effort to develop an ASEAN car. It looks like things are moving ahead on that front, with a timeline for product deployment now being mentioned.
According to Bernama, second International Trade and Industry minister Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan said Proton was currently in negotiations with a few automobile companies in China, including Geely, and a new ASEAN car could come about in under two years.
“Things are moving positively. They say they need 20 months from now to build a plant and roll out the first car,” he told reporters at an event yesterday.
Ong said that there was a lot of potential in tapping into the regional automotive sector, given the large population, expanding middle class and strong purchasing power. “We must act fast to capture the market. If we can produce cars to cater to this market, it will be highly beneficial given the various regional free trade agreements,” he explained.
He added that partnerships with Chinese carmakers will enable Malaysia to leverage on China’s strong R&D, thus improving Proton cars and enable the national automaker to come up with a competitive model for the ASEAN market.
This directional change would shift the focus away from that reported earlier in the year, when Proton was understood to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an Indonesian partner to intensify efforts to build an ASEAN car. Last year, the automaker had expressed its interest and willingness to collaborate with regional manufacturers to produce an ASEAN car.
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Seems like proton is a little late to the party, there are already countless manufacturers who are manufacturing in ASEAN for the ASEAN market. They also have ASEAN cars produced only for the ASEAN market.
Better late then never
BN and the ministers will not accept it because is non halal…
Proton can’t even succeed with their own cars, such a big faiure, now they want to do ASEAN car?
Charity begins at home. Try to succeed locally first. Then venture overseas.
Like small kid. Still cannot kencing straight and wet the toilet seat, now want to grow like big boy and have sex.
Also, Proton’s overseas ventures all failed big time. Proton sales are near ZERO in each country. Yet they maintain big showroom and pay expat fees to some monkey from Malaysia to stay overseas. Like in UK, Proton is a big failure, but Proton spends millions of ringgit to pay the Malaysian staff pay and housing in the UK. But sales only 1 or 2 cars.
Pls Proton, you know you are a failure. Stop wasting your money which is our LHDN mney. Every year Proton sucks hundreds of millions of our LHDN money in the form of kononnya research grants.
Those BN ministers surface act halal only. The things they did everyday non-halal.
?
Satu lagi project tongkat alim
first global car…..cannot jalan now change asean car……from big market to small market
Toyota = ASEAN Car.
No identity.
Correct. ASEAN car shouldn’t have identity amongst ASEANs.
But then again,
Toyota identity is reliability.
Nissan identity is road hogging.
Honda identity is ricers.
Mazda identity is red color.
China car identity is poor quality.
Proton identity is poor quality high fuel consumption.
Hey, korean car can be ASEAN car. Full of buttons, gadgets, soulless, neither here nor there, colorful, showing off, bling blingness, noisy, slow, no driver feedback. Just like ASEAN.
Clap,clap.. Joke of the day.
You think all the Japanese car models sell in ASEAN equivalent with those in European countries. The raw materials such as steel has the different.
European model have a lot of high tensile steel 590MPa up to 1500MPa for main structure. Masuk ASEAN most of the parts change to mild steel, 270MPa.
Who would wanna buy this crap if people just top up a bit more for a Japanese make..
Somebody said like that to kimchi cars 20 years ago. Look where they are now.
But where is Proton now?
Others Asean country can start enjoy impose excise tax on Potong as retaliation for Asean car
I thought proton wants to go global
May be they don’t mean going global but trying to catch up with global standard.
“China’s strong R&D” – are you freaking kidding me
But anyhow, I wish Proton success.. we can do it if we want to.
Yes. China is strong R&D. They even can launch rocket / satellite. Look at their automotive advancement, the grow of mobile companies and technologies, and so many other industries.
Lets not forget they also have the capabilities to send men to the moon with their own rocket, in the future Malaysians also are able to take China Space Taxi and eat roti canai in the space craft and then claim they are Astronauts.
Malaysian too stupid, dunno R&D. Malaysian only know Revenge & Destroy
Qoros, Volvo. The runner-ups of world’s safest cars.
Proton is safer though, and I don’t persoal their claim.
You are kidding yourself! Go do more research man!
Check how many products (not just cars) and technologies are patented and copy righted.
If they depend on China’s strong R&D, imagine how bad Proton is?
Talk only la. What happened to the Islamic car with Iran announced in 2007? 8 years already still nothing. 20 months?
Masih ada yg komen mcm tahu buat kreta, sabar jgn suka cari salah, komen biarlah yg membantu membina industri kreta tanahair
Proton patutnya sudah ada gabungan designer lama dan muda supaya boleh bekerjasama baik secara lokal atau luar Negara.Bagi membolehkan design yang segar dan sedap dipandang. Pasal prestasi dan kuasa kreta kemudian saja, tapi utk safety adalah MESTI.
after spending billions and biilions in R&D, tis P1 is truly global car champion in making announcements, joint ventures, MOU, sales carnivals….apparently they spent all the “donations” on the above activities
Their logic is loser + loser = something great coming out.