One of the key points of the interview with Proton chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the national carmaker’s dogged determination in developing its own cars with its own technology – such as its upcoming new range of engines with direct injection – instead of rebadging those from other carmakers.
When asked about whether it was worth it to spend so much money on its own research and development, when it is cheaper to simply rebadge other cars, the former premier responded, “We will never progress if we just change the logo at the front and back. One has to remember that there is also a nation agenda – it is not just about making money.
“We want to acquire engineering capabilities in this country. The car provides a lot of engineering technologies and ways of thinking. We have to learn those,” he said.
Mahathir added that there was no point if Proton had continued to simply change the badges at the front and rear of the car. “It’s not our car. We might as well just import cars and not put our badges,” he said.
He also touched on the partnership with Suzuki, and how Proton could learn from Japan’s fourth biggest carmaker. “They are very good in small cars, they have good knowledge about reducing costs, they have a lot of technology we can access. So we can learn from them.
“They went to India before anybody did, and they worked with Maruti. Now they are selling one million cars in India. So they have certain knowledge which we need to acquire.”
Mahathir claimed that Suzuki found that “the Malaysian market is too small for them,” and that it wanted to exit the country. “They offer to work with us. So why not? We can learn from them,” he said.
Watch the video above to see the full interview with Proton chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
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Rebadge oled happened, Tun M, be clear and responsible what Proton did to Inspira (Lancer), do not try to explain your “copy and paste” skill was due to what grandfather reason. Lazy proton has produce Inspira in the History, and this Shame moment will rest in peace together with you in grave.
“They are very good in small cars, they have good knowledge about reducing costs” Tun DrM said… With AP system and heavy excise duty Proton still can reduce costs BUT STILL will sell it EXPENSIVE to own Rakyat !!! Why’s the logic? Aka bolehland? Lousy AP system !
Vote for importing them!
When you are making roti canai, you don’t suddenly start selling sushi rolls. Proton better stick with rebadge, it is your forte. Who care about progress or not?
Because of 20k employees in Proton, whole nation 28mil have to suffer high car price.
Proton engineers are the laziest lot. Few thousand engineers but 30 years, came out with thrash. Why? Half the time tidur in office, lepak, tengok awek, kongkek awek at the pintu rintangan api, relaks
Other half, the engineers had meetings after meeting. Each meeting nothing comes out of it and it is adjourned. So meetings mean, makan karipap and kuih lapis and kuih talam and minum teh.
Typical GLC mentality. That is Proton engineers. Whole day makan and tidur.
You will never progress if NAP is not abolish. You might as well just sell Nasi Lemak
Doctor supposed to tell truth to patients even at ICU death bed.
hahaha I find it funny that he doesn’t want to buy and rebadge the engines, I thought Lotus was using a rebadged Camry engine?
So why not then have a Toyota engine in protons? If a rebadged engine bothers him so much, how about the ABS system that comes from Bosch?
rebadge engine? Usually car company buy engine not rebadge engine..
That’s y new perdana not our car, i not support
And Insbilah.
PROTON news again…oh no !why bother to keep explaining how you failed in pass 30 years without implement something to improved the QC ?
Unggok,Tun is right.
Protong might as well get a huge AP and import exotic cars.No need spend Rm 200 juta to collaborate with Suzuki just to rebadge.
Remember they have wasted tax funded grant of Rm 500 juta to rebadge the Inspira.(also cannot sell now,discontinued).
Just bring in any car,big and small,like the bladdy Naza guys.Just push all the bladdy AP cars to the Chinamen who are expert in selling cars.
Convert your Tanjong Malim and Shah Alam plants into stock yards as the shipments come in,like the way they stock up the cancerous bauxite.
By 2017,when sales are down to 50,000 units…just tutup kedai..employ 4-5 staff(banglas available now) to do admin to bring in AP cars.
Just shake legs….let someone do the selling,no need collaborate and waste millions…sounds practical? No need take panadol trying to figure out which deadwood to chop.
Senang je.
Syukur lah.
better just import or ckd, at least less on reason to blame for the high price
Hello Tun, 30 years have passed. Infact, if you consider the initial set up, 40 years have passed. You mean in 40 years, our engineers could not develop its own engines and cars?
Proton has the largest number of engineers of any car company in the world. we follow Malaysian style. Employ for fun just to give people free jobs. Same like Malaysian Civil Service. It has 1.5 million Government Servants, highest in the world.
So, why do we have thousands of highly paid engineers in Proton? What did they do the past 40 years? 40 whole years have passed. Even Horoshima, which was flattened by atomic bomb, managed to rebuild the whole city in 20 years to a state of the art city with tens of thousands sky scrappers.
So, what have the thousands of engineers in Proton been doing the 40 years? We have the right to know because Proton has been sucking our money from LHDN. Infact, since the 90s, Proton has sapu over RM100 billion from our tax payers money just to keep the company afloat. We Malaysians have the right to know what your engineers have been doing the past 40 years?
25 years we never learnt anything from Mitsubishi, what makes you think we are going to learn anything from Suzuki Tun?
Bradder Songlap,you r damn damn correct…correct..correct.
Mazda ‘s factory was raised from ground Zero after Hiroshima was atomic bombed.
Imagine,the Japanese cleaned up the radioactive city and here comes mazda with Sky Activ technology.
Protong took 4 decades…still radioactive,cancerous,OKU…cannot even produce a decent engine and gearbox.
Protong has SYIOK ACTIV technology.
Don’t blame the public for buying more expensive japanese cars(cos of f..up taxes)
No one in his right frame of mind would prefer a proton now.Now they admit CFE hose pechah at 40,oo0 km.They got no balls to own up,until some buyers resorted to going to the press.
ONCE BITTEN,TWICE SHY….IF u still don’t understand,go and ask our beloved Tun what it means.
Kindly verify your statement ‘Proton has the largest number of engineers of any car company in the world.’ Is it from:
1) wikipedia edited
2) actual fact from your father/mother/cousin/friend who works at proton
3) in the depth of your butt cavity
Support P1 = Support Tun M = Support Bersih = Support Party Hard = Support Dear Leader becum PM = Support ABU
Dr. M haven’t “Potong” learnt anything at all from Mitsubishi? Tons of money & donkey years wasted. Bottom= LAZY. Only money minded sucking Rakyat’s & country’s blood.
Yes. Rebadge is for Perodua. Don’t do Accordana or Lanspira.
But then please make a car that is better than any rebadge. Not only better, make it less problem, pleeeease!
Maybe Tun, we should go back to importing cars for the rakyat’s sake. All car prices shot up 3 fold because of Proton. In the 90s, we could buy a Corolla or a Nissan Sunny for about RM20,000 brand new. A brand new Mercedes 200 was RM57k and a brand new BMW 728i was RM120k
30 years later, the nissan and Corrolla is RM139k. Maybe 6 to 7 fold.
Many wise people will say because of inflation. Yes, inflation did make car prices go up but only slightly. Car prices infact have come down the past 30 years due to
1) economies of scale
2) Latest robots manufacturing car lines
As you can see from global prices of cars, in the 90s and until now, 25 years later, the car at most have doubled in price. But in Malaysia, it has 7 fold. Why? All because of protecting Proton.
Ask yourself why in the world market, the Altis 2.0 is only about US$12k and the Camry 2.5 is only US$22k? When Malaysia sells the Altis 2.0 Rm139k and the Camry 2.5 Rm180k
We Malaysians have suffered enough for Proton and you.
Thai sell Camry 2.5L for 1,569,000 Baht (RM180k++) oso though..not cheap either
good.. import more cars, cut down import duty tax. proton close shop la
new perdana?
Reduce, liberalise car excise duty first in order to progress and compete fairly. Replace car tax based on CO2 emissions.
Or else, sell your Preve same pricing RM95K as per Altis, Civic, Cerato. Your Perdana 2.4L also should be selling at RM160K against Camry, Accord, Optima, Sonata, Teana.
Do not hide behind MITI and Custom pricing just to show you can sell lower price because others forced to sell higher price thus making your price appear magically cheaper when its not.
I am fine if you keep all your failures and “learning curve” of making a car to yourself without jacking up car prices and forced the rakyat to buy your low quality junk. Moreover, you use us a guinea pig to test put your so called “technology”.
From the consumer point of view, why should I buy and support crap product in the expenses of some lofty “national agenda” that doesn’t benifits me at all? Might as well buy import and have a piece of mind. Furthermore, you don’t cheriah your customers, as evidence of your shoody service and lousy QC, why should we help you in return?
Yes you trying hard not to say “Be patriotic, buy Proton” right?
Then what we rakyat being paying for last 30 years in car taxes gazillions of it? Not patriotic enough kah?
How about selling junk cars to own rakyat? You call that patriotic also?
How about stop buying Porsche. Now that’s really patriotic big time!
Undurlah Mahathir. Proton is still nothing with you meddling in something you have no qualification in. Pergilah jadi part-timer at some govt. clinic somewhere, that would be a more worthwhile use of your remaining years.
As for your proton, did you see what the DPM drives around in nowadays? Govt agencies are slowly buying other makes because your cars have sucked before, now and very much forever. I’m very sure Najib is concotting a plan to kill off your proton now. Just let DRB wind-down the proton brand, sell assets to other automakers in their portfolio so that we no longer need to see poorly designed and poorly made cars coming out. Once this happens, Perodua could just adopt the Daihatsu brand once and for all and integrate fully with Toyota, then we will have a vibrant auto industry once again.
Quality, safety and reliability for all!
Our death care industry will oso be vibrant thanks to the number of moving coffins pumped out by P2
Poor Suzuki, never learn from Honda and Mitsubishi. Soon, they will have a nasty shock of the “30% hand-out” culture, cronyism and the ultimate nasi lemak, tidak apa attitude managment that will forced them to abandon this songlap land, sell off all their interest and go back to Japan (just like Mitsubishi did).
Next, Proton will be wondering around being an automotive whore, finding its next bed partner to swindler and fool.
Proton will never made any progress if they continue such sentiment…. is a car business. [Full stop]
Reference to small market sits well with an earlier comment on volume and exports, while the issue of rebadging also sits well with exports, foreign and local customers must be confident with Proton on their engineering and service capabilities, rebadging after 30 years will not give this confidence. I only hope it a Malaysian effort/success story like the film ‘Ola Bola’.
Proton missed an opportunity of the lifetime
when it rejected the JV with VW…
at the very last minute. …why ?
All because of pride, ego and arrogance.
They forgot about the long term sustainability and had blurrer vision aka bodoh sombong.
Management felt threatened cos they would be the ones affected if VW were to gain 51% equity stake.
30 years down the road Proton has worked with MMC , Renault, Citroën, and now with Honda & Suzuki.
What have they gained so far ?
Zilch, nothing. Why? Because these are trade secrets. Don’t expect Suzuki to sit with you and reveal everything. Please P1 , a new partnership always starts promising but you should be wiser by now cos after all these years you have gained nothing from all the fancy shok sendiri calloborations.
Perhaps the time is right to look back and
reconsider an equity stake offer for a more lasting partnership & commitment.
Perhaps.
Bash while ignoring what happened to suzuki. Topkek
It failed because of crony system, not about own or rebadge thing…wake up
“We will never progress if we just change the logo at the front and back. One has to remember that there is also a nation agenda – it is not just about making money.”
I do agreed, but Tun, why not just focus on making money first? If the company not even able to make money from direct import/rebadge, what make you think that it manage to make money with R&D?
Yes Tun… We may just import cars. Enough la…
Wait.
Wasn’t this already on the books in 1986? NO???
Tun, please, if you want to be a serious player in this industry, can you please look beyond the 600k TIV in Malaysia? Can aa?
And when you do that, can you ensure that the QUALITY that you make these cars in will be acceptable in foreign markets AND domestically? Otherwise you will waste money again.
And Tun, when you sell the cars, can you make sure the after sales service is also top-notch?? Can?
To think that some 30 years later you can’t even get basics right!
whatever la, Proton…
Put sticker, put badge, put logo, put flower, whatever you want to put at your car. Change name, change company, change model name, etc. Whatever
Turd is only turd.
Business is meant to make profit. Make money
If Proton is a business, and it is not making money….
Then…tutup kedai lagi bagus.
Unless Tun thinks proton is a charity organization– Keeping and feeding lazy unemployble jaguh kampung engineers, syoik sendiri, feel good only company…and worst, wasting taypayers money.
The question is HAVE YOU PROGRESSED AFTER SO LONG?
Ada beytul jugga
Proton is world’s best reasons/excuse giver, when their business failed countless times.
Proton slogan “Not my Fault if I Failed”
well if you guys wanna buy a very cheap cute lil car,go buy the china car laa..what its name??greatwall??haha made in china one