1. Someone suggested Proton produce electric cars. It is a good idea. Electric cars cause less pollution because the electricity to drive the cars is ultimately provided by electric power plants. These use fuel oil, coal, gas water-power and nuclear power. The pollution is still there but minimised.
2. Electric cars need batteries, specifically lithium-ion batteries. They cost RM1,000 per cell currently. Tesla needs between 36 to 48 cells, adding to the cost of the cars.
3. Mitsubishi MIEV and Nissan Leaf use slightly less number of batteries but are still quite expensive, certainly more expensive than Proton’s internal combustion engine cars.
4. Charging the batteries take 8-hours. The batteries would be fully discharged after running from 70 to 130 kilometres. Some run further but needs more batteries, increasing the price.
5. The batteries are said to last 10 years. This is by computer simulation. Replacing the batteries would be costly.
6. Toyota and Honda produce hybrid cars i.e. petrol engines together with batteries. They don’t seem to have faith in electric cars. Chevrolet produce the Volt which is also a hybrid and not electric. They are all more expensive than ordinary cars.
7. For the past five years Proton has been researching and developing both electric and hybrid cars. It cost a lot of money though not as much as the major car manufacturers who have spent more than USD4 billion each. So far nobody has truly succeeded.
8. We are still trying in Proton.
9. The Malaysian Government subsidises fuel prices. More cars on the road means more subsidies. To recover some of this money, the Government taxes motor vehicles including Proton. The high price of the cars is due to the taxes.
10. The only way to reduce car prices is to lower or abolish taxes. The Government would lose a lot of revenue. There will be affordable electric cars when battery prices come down considerably. That will take a long time.
11. I am presently in Australia. This rich developed country had a national car – the Holden. When foreign cars came in the Holden lost market share and money. It was sold to General Motors of America which agreed to produce Holden GM cars on condition the Australian Federal Government support it by 200 million Australian dollars a year (600 million Ringgit).
12. Now General Motors wants to pull out unless the Australian Government guarantees to subsidise it beyond 2015. The Labour Party is offering Aus$300 million a year. The high cost is due to the rise in exchange rate of the Australian dollar and very high labour cost. The cars on Australian roads are almost all from Korea and Japan though a small number are produced in Australia with 30% local content. Toyota which produces a lot of components locally is also contemplating pulling out.
13. Consider what would happen to Australia’s economy if General Motors pulls out. No one is talking about electric cars.
Salam Tun,
Here’s my take (just my 2 cents).
What happens when there’s too many cars on the road?
Too much fuel subsidies, more congestion on roads / highways, more infrastructure, more maintenance, more parking spaces, more single occupancy vehicle, more consumption, more wastage, … etc. Everywhere is choked with cars! It just leaves too much negative vs. positive impact on the society, country and environment.
Regardless of what type of car introduced (eco or not) … the problem is having too many cars! So, shouldn’t the solution be to reduce the number of cars? Fuel subsidies should be abolished, and impose high taxes on fuel. Consolidate, subsidize and support local public transportation companies to increase capacity, capability, availability and coverage. Reward companies that promotes fuel efficiency.
Those who can afford to drive, pays the taxes which contributes to building better transportation infrastructure. Reduce taxes on cars making them affordable so, all of us can still have our cars (or dream cars) and drive whenever we feel like “affording it”. Yes, it may cost more per KM, but you are not driving cross country right? I wonder if anyone enjoys getting stuck in jam during “balik kampung”. Promote the usage of public transportation for distance travel for saving fuel, time and money.
But one may argue, with the increase in fuel cost, all sectors will increase as well, thus higher cost of doing business and living. Yes!, but wages and salary too will increase to compensate indirectly!. I doubt anyone is still being paid the same salary when petrol prices was below RM 1.50 / litter. It may take time, but it’ll happen eventually.
Easier said than done? Well, maybe … but it’s just my opinion :).
1. http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/12/24/the-creepy-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp/
2. http://www.youtube.com/wath?v=FhziYeZA4
3. http://www.infoware.com/trans-pacific-partnership-ready-for-christmas-delivery/
Tun You have brought up 2 fascinating subjects which are
close to our hearts – the motorcar. We can only assess the weakness
and the strength of such a concept by going back to the basics
which was a long time ago, precisely 30 years ago. The booming
years of your 22 year Administration even though with the
difficulty of implementing the NEP which was 10 years late and the
unfortunate demise of the late Tun Abdul Razak one of our foremost
Prime Ministers. From your VISION, INNOVATION and CREATIVITY, we
have lots of highways which interlace the country, a new capital
and airport with a cyberspace town to boot. A Malay middle income
group which also brought up the other races from their burgeoning
wealth. ALL THESE WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU DID NOT HAVE YOUR
LITTLE NOTE BOOK WITH YOU ALL THE TIME. In other words, for a
dynamic country to progress there must be a dynamic and sincere
leadership right at the top or else sooner or later, events will
overtaken any pretender with feet of clay ! Your achievements in
the building of our beloved are solid and meaningful – not the
creation of money with money BUT THE CREATION OF MONEY WITHOUT
MONEY. For you Tun, this came naturally. We are now concerned with
the centrepiece of our endeavours to industrialize which is the
motorcar industry as led by the Proton. Though we did not succeed
so far to be like South Korea but we have still available the
natural resources, the requisite GLCs which should be privatised
and the human resources. As I am a born optimist, it is just the
simple matter of putting the right pegs in the right holes by a
concerned and focussed leadership. We have still got the
ingredients to make things to work in our favour given the right
encouragement.. OK. Maybe we lack the technical know-how to build
the engine. Then, this maybe the only instance when we use our
financial resources to purchase the experts and the technology. I
envisioned Sime Darby in 1972 to be like Temasek Holdings in the
21st century. But unfortunately, Sime Darby preferred to be like a
British trading outfit of old without the Empire Preference and
risks, and does not eschew sponsoring Deep Ocean Racing in far away
New Zealand and a multitude of small businesses in the vast
continent of Australiasia which is forever short of money ! There
is so much to do at home ! Again, if given the right leadership and
the will and a huge dollop of professionalism, not only the
motorcar industry but the progress towards the next level of
economic achievement is well within our reach. What I suggested are
NEW ways of doing OLD things, and not OLD ways of doing OLD things
if you pardon me for saying this ! Since Einstein, there is not
much to invent anymore these days ! You have done it quite
successfully and your achievements are for all to see and not to
publish or write home about, Tun !
Opposed to what many people would say about Proton, i personally see proton growing and becoming better over the years. I understand being a business, it’s a balancing act between having the most advance and expensive technology and making the company profitable and self sustaining. While most people just wants the best of everything, sadly, not many can create the best of anything, they can only criticize and place the blame on others.
As for EV, the world still have a long way to go. Conventional batteries most probably will not solve the capacity issue, i strongly believe EV will only be practical once the super capacitor is made accessible to manufacturer at low cost. Capacitors can be charged in lesser time and have a longer lifespan over conventional chemical batteries. While conventional batteries stores electron via chemical process, electrolysis and reverse electrolysis, capacitors stores electrons like a fuel tank and releases them the same way. Carbon nanotubes used in capacitor technology is showing great promise and prices can be made reasonable once there are investors who would brave the path of mass producing them.
In the mean time, a serial hybrid would make a lot of sense for a city car. With a serial hybrid, the ICE engine can be made to run more efficient without having to cope with varying load of a normal ICE car or parallel hybrids. Hopefully Proton would consider putting the REEV into production.
To be honest, Malaysian have long forgotten the true meaning of independence. It’s all about the money today. No matter what slogan, what motto, what banner they fought on, in the end, all of them are fighting for the same thing, MONEY. Many have forgotten, the meaning of independence, it’s about not having to depend on others, yet here we are, still being dependent on everything that is not ours while believing what we have is never good enough. I guess Malaysians have not been freed yet. I really do miss the good old days.
Salam Tun,
Let’s look into the scenarios in Australia and frame it into Malaysia scenario.
First, the government has two choices :-
1. Abolish Malaysia goods advantage – and let the people compete between each other in a free market.
2. Retain Malaysia goods advantage – ensuring Proton survives.
Obviously choice 2. is keeping status quo , no drama, no incident and nothing and Proton got what it wants, so nothing interesting to investigate.
Choice 1. may turn Proton situation into Holden’s situation. Let say, after a few years after Choice 1 is made, then Proton found itself in Holden shoes.
Then, the next question- what should Proton do ? In an open scenario, Proton may negotiate like what GM did or pull-out of Malaysia,
Say that government agrees to subsidize Proton just like what Labour Party did. the government would face a double whammy problem. It lost revenue because taxes and APs are abolised and then it has an increased of cost because , it has to subsidize Proton. Is this a good thing ? Obviously , there will be some pressure on the fiscal deficit.
On the other hand, say that government does not agrees to subsidize Proton and in order to survive Proton needs to relocate. Example, produce the cars in Indonesia and sell it back to Malaysia market. It is a free- trade what, no tax and so use the least cost in labour around South East Asia. (By the way, these would be the impacts of TPPA if government is not careful). In this case, Proton profitability will go like a roller coaster, goes down and move up back again if the operation in Indonesia is sucessful. Indonesia has a bigger market size than Malaysia in the future. It is a “small-car” market due to lower wages in the country…. It may give Proton an opportunity to develop it’s own fleet of small car to compete with Perodua ? But the impact on the government would be tremendous. I dont have the figure to calculate it,but in summary, would be a lost of GNI, GDP and employment. The biggest problem for the government is to find the replacement jobs for 150,000 people in the automotive industry because these jobs has gone to other Asean countries which benifited from AFTA , such as Thailand and Indonesia.
The idea of the electric car dominant on public roads should not be just an idea. It has to be practical.
For that reason, an area needs to be selected to run this idea. A good suggestion would be to build a brand new township.
This new township is designed with the electric car in mind. The recharging kiosks and other facilities are to be carefully implemented. Most likely only electric cars are allowed. Other types of vehicles will be be fined or towed away.
And of course tax breaks for companies participating in this new township to develop their own electric cars.
Tun,
There always be two side to any subject and it will never end. The solution is don’t compare and just accept inventions or ideas. There can never be a better or best car as human can never be satisfied and just have choices is the answer. Buy and use whatever type of cars that you feel comfortable is the answer. Most of human’s inventions are killer/killing of earth and human welfare. The only perfect systems are the living things digestive and energy producing systems. God and nature creations are the only truly recyclable and no wastage system, others are just conveniences that have side-effects or bad-effects. Be contented is the answer to finding the best or better of anything.
If there is anything to improve Proton it surely must be better substance and management. If a R&D dept. of any company is based on short-cuts, political preferences, race, religion and cannot accept feedback or criticism then the failure is very real and near. How long can anyone or any group provide protection to anything. It is better to open eyes and mind to learn, understand and be relevant rather than protect. In the case of Proton what is there to protect if their products are good and value for money. I think there is nothing seriously wrong with Proton cars and it is also advisable to check on the service agents and centres as there are alot of cheating case of “engine oil”.
Salam Tun
Harap Tun kemukakan , Prihatin tentang penjualan Tanah pada Asing di Johor
Seakan Malaysia Dayus TIDAK MAMPU Membangun Tanah sendiri hingga menjual Tanah Berluasa di Johor dan dengan freehold land
Kemanakah arah anak Bumi Kelak
Seumpama mempelawa Asing menjajah Tanah Bumi Malaysia
Lambat Laun UMNO akan TUMPAS !
Cucu cicit Sultan akan Tergugat
Peace to Tun and readers,
Again Tun shows that Tun is consistently eager to learn something new and trying to understand something. That will just inspire me the younger generation to do the same.
After what Tun has bravely done during the early administration(1983) as the PM to set up a new national car company, Proton today has achieved quite something. Surely, people will always see the better possibilities and the things that should be achieved by Proton after achieved 30 years old today. That is unavoidable and I believe there will always be some rooms for improvement.
Nevertheless, a car-production industry is a very tough market and highly competitive. Even the big car-company like GM and Honda do make platform sharing to reduce the cost of car production even though they are the big players for quite some time compared with proton.
I think the future of car production will have the big potentials in the alternative energy and the investments in the R&D can be really beneficial for the survival of Proton. We are the biggest palm oil producer in the world and we should have the real advantages for the yet unexplored markets. Fossil fuels cannot be available forever and definitely there must be some alternative fuel energy sources like the palm oil to replace it.
I also think that our world is too much depending on the fossil fuel and we are forced to follow the stupid ideas of the big world players that will never care about the others. Surely, there will be some oppositions saying that the palm oil productions to replace fossil fuels will destroy the jungles and all. But, even if we are to continue using the fossil fuel will not make us any better and these world players are having their plans to dominate the world by oils after they invade the weak but oil-producing countries like how we saw now. They are the problematic and no need for us to always follow the others neglecting our intellectual abilities.
Salam Tun,
Memang tidak dinafikan bahawa satu hari nanti kereta EV akan menjadi norma kepada penduduk dunia. Langkah awal yang diambil Proton untuk bergiat dalam industri kereta EV sudah boleh dilihat melalui Ixora REEV dan Saga EV yang telah memenangi anugerah di RAC Future Car Challenge 2011.
Seperti pembaca-pembaca lain, saya juga agak tertarik dengan isu kos & manafaat pemilikan kereta EV di Malaysia dimana, pendapat peribadi saya pemilikan kereta EV tidak praktikal buat masa sekarang. Ada beberapa isu yang perlu diselesaikan seperti infrasrtuktur, kos pemilikan,i cukai jalan, insuran, stesen mengecas, dan sebagainya. Ini adalah pautanya
http://paultan.org/2010/11/25/driven-protons-range-extender-electric-exora-prototype/
Pertama sekali isu kos tenaga elektrik. Walaupun tidak mengunakan bahan api petroleum secara langsung tetapi stesen janakuasa yang ada di malaysia ini rata-ratanya masih mengunakan jenis bahan api fosil seperti arang batu, diesel dan paling banyak sekali gas asli. Sedia diketahui umum bahawa sumber bahan api fosil ini semakan berkurangan dan harga pasaran tidak menentu. disebabkan harga yang semakin hari semakin mahal maka kos penghasilan tenaga elektrik di negara ini diserap pengguna dan rakyat. Walaupun telah disubsidi, harga elektrik bagi rakyat biasa masih mahal.
Disini saya ingin mencadangkan bahawa negara beralih kepada sumber tenaga diperbaharui yg berdasarkan alga. Di Australia meraka sedang membina kilang penghasilan biodiesel untuk memenuhi sebahagian keperluan dalam negara mereka. Inilah pautannya:
http://ens-newswire.com/2013/07/05/australia-to-build-first-co2-capture-for-algae-biofuel/
Jika Malaysia mengambil langkah berani untuk berbuat perkara yang sama nescaya keresahan rakyat serta ketidaktentuan harga tenaga elektrik dan harga diesel di Malaysia dapat diatasi. Malaysia tidak kekurangan pakar dan tenaga mahir untuk beraliah kepada sumber biodiesel alga. Malah inisiatif ini telah ada seperti projek yang kurang diketahui umum, Malaysian Integrated Algae Valley (MIAV) di pahang. Apa yang diperlukan ialah kemahuan politik atau dalam bahasa inggeris, political will. MNC dan GLC seperti Petronas dan TNB sepatutnya berganding bahu untuk menjayakan inisiatif seperti ini kerana mereka juga akan mendapat keuntungan setelah biodiesel alga menjadi sumber tenaga utama Malaysia.
Isu kedua ialah bateri kereta EV/hibrid itu sendiri. Umum mengetahui bahawa bateri Litium Ion sekarang ini memang mahal dan mempunyai jangka hayat tak lebih 10 tahun. Ini akan menyebabkan penjimatan bahanapi petrol/diesel tidak dapat mengimbangi kos pengantian bateri Li-ion kereta EV/hibrid. Disini saya ingin mencadangkan pengunaan super capacitor dan bateri berasaskan graphene. Ini adalah pautannya:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/521651/graphene-supercapacitors-ready-for-electric-vehicle-energy-storage-say-korean-engineers/
FGV telah mengambil inisiatif berani untuk melabur dalam teknologi canggih ini. Seolah-olah ingin mengikut jejak langkah Nokia, mereka telah memulakan langkah. Ini pautannya:
http://www.bharian.com.my/articles/FGVperintishasilkanCNT_graphenedaripadasawit/Article/
Jika ianya berjaya maka pulanganya akan jadi amat berbaloi. Proton dan FGV boleh menjadi pengeluar bateri graphene utama dunia.
Isu ketiga ialah untuk mengecas bateri kereta EV. Di Malaysia masih tiada infrastruktur seperti stesen mengecas kecuali di KLCC dan Putrajaya, itupun sekadar pendemonstrasi teknologi sahaja untuk tujuan publisiti. Adapun pemilikan peribadi seperti yang dilakukan untuk pemilik Nissan LEAF dan Mitsubishi MIEV. Untuk pemilik rumah “landed property” memang tidak menjadi masalah besar. Tetapi lain pula ceritanya untuk orang yang menduduki kondominium dan pangsapuri dimana tiada tempat untuk di “plug-in”. Maka negara perlu menyediakan stesen mengcas yang lebih banyak.
Itulah pendapat dan idea saya yang hanya sebagai rakyat biasa. Harap Tun dapat menyampaikan kepada pemimpin negara.
Salam Tun,
madness is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. Which is what BN aka BarangNaik is practising despite Najib’s stern warning that “perception is more important than reality”
2. the rakyat’s perception is that Najib is not in touch with reality. So is his darling celebrity wife.
3. and so is Tun Mahathir who thinks that “Protonism” is still relevant in the year 2013
4. rakyat sudah muak dengan retorik ahli politik yang menikus bila dicabar dengan realiti. Mungkin sebab itu mereka layak dipanggil ‘Politikus’
5. maaf adalah dendam yang terindah ! Tak apalah, rakyat akan memberi maaf kepada UMNO bila tiba PRU14 nanti.
Tun jaga diri baik-baik sebab ramai rakyat marhaen yang masih sayang dan menaruh harapan pada Tun, sebab Tun telah menjaga kami dgn baik selama 22 tahun.
http://tuandirektor.blogspot.com/2013/12/sembah-dehaka-tun-m-dengan-sistem-cukai.html
..” .di Malaysia, di mana membeli dan memiliki kereta adalah seperti membeli sebuah rumah. Kereta sebenarnya bukanlah satu pelaburan kerana nilai susutnya yang tinggi, tetapi pelaksanaan cukai yang melampau menjadikan kereta itu dilihat oleh rakyat sebagai satu long-term investment. Kereta bukan investment!. Kereta sepatutnya dianggap sebagai consumer goods. Tetapi di Malaysia, selalunya kita harus membuat pinjaman bank yang kadang-kadangnya sampai 9 tahun untuk membeli kereta. Untuk negara yang percapital income nya lebih kurang RM 30.000 setiap tahun, membayar sekurang-kurangnya RM 600 sebulan selama sembilan tahun untuk kereta yang beharga lebih kurang RM50,000 adalah satu ketidak-adilan.
Siapa yang mahu membeli kereta elektrik yang nilai pasarannya pasti akan susut jauh lebih cepat dari kereta konventional. Dan pastinya kereta-kereta elektrik ini tidak mempunyai second-hand value kerana kemajuan teknologi adalah pantas. Kereta elektrik sangat terikat dengan perkembangan teknologi. Dalam masa beberapa tahun sahaja, pasti akan ada tambahan ataupun kemajuan baru yang dicipta dalam bidang elektronik. Kereta elektrik akan dianggap tidak kurang daripada telefon bimbit ataupun komputer sekarang ini. Kereta elektrik adalah ideal untuk jangka masa pemilikan yang pendek. Tapi di Malaysia yang harga keretanya seakan-akan harga rumah, memiliki kereta elektrik adalah luxury dan bukannya keperluan.
Untuk memiliki kereta bagi satu tempoh jangka masa yang panjang, tiada siapa akan memilih kereta elektrik. Ini bukan Jepun, ini bukan US. Ini Malaysia, rakyat sudah terbeban dengan cukai yang tinggi, jangan ditambahkan pula dengan idea bernas untuk menghasilkan kereta elektrik. Untuk membeli kereta buatan sendiri pon terpaksa berhutang bertahun-tahun. Make cars affordable first! “….
1. EV is definitely the way forward. I have driven it and very much impressed by the technology. Elon Musk and his team have worked so hard to make it work. He even said that if the company has gone bust he would buy all the Teslas back with his own money. Clearly, the drive here is not just to make money but to make something impossible, happen. This was the vision Tun had with Proton. People thought it will never work, but it did. Proton still survives but only just. I am sure a lot would agree that there were some issues, like quality, after sales etc but these are small problems compared to what proton is facing.
2. I love Proton, my first car was a Proton and I will always be a fan. It is like a guilty pleasure to own a Proton. For me, when proton produced a car, the design was always backwards. It is always dull with mismatch styling. The Korean car used to be like Proton until they employed a designer from German who used to work for Volkswagen. We can see now, KIA and Hyundai are in the mainstream car manufacturer and not in a budget conscious market. Proton sold less than 10 cars in the UK last year. KIA did really well.
3. Proton need to move forward. Not to rely on using Lotus name forever. It doesn’t work anymore. People wants to see, feel, and maybe taste the quality. Paying more for a quality item should not be expensive and for most, expensive can mean affordable when the quality is right.
4. EV from Proton will work but only with extremely good design and good marketing. Unfortunately, in my opinion, we are definitely lacking both. I know we feel so proud when we design our own car but when we need help, we need help. There is no wrong in outsourcing talent if what we have is not good enough. We can learn from other people. Proton has its own strength and in my opinion it needs to think globally before thinking about what the Malaysian wants.
5. In basic purchasing, one would look at what is in front of him and choose the nicest, cheapest, biggest. Unfortunately Proton cars are not competitive enough even to look at. Another brand that was always seen as budget class was Skoda. But it changed. Good design. Its cars were not tuned by Lotus or Ferrari, no gimmick just plain good quality.
6. We still need to protect Proton. It has given us so much. But Proton needs to be responsible. It needs to up its game and not felt pampered by the current strategy. No more gimmick. Bring back world class quality. Good design. And I think it will work.
Salam Tun,
Nice comments Tun Perak. Very constructive comments.
1. It is very true that a complete electric driven car like Nissan LEAF might not fly in Malaysia at the moment. To operate a fully electric driven car, you need to install the charger at the home and from someone that I know living in US who have installed one, it is not cheap. Second, on top of the existing electricity bill that people is paying, there is no way people will want to use their existing electric energy to charge their car unless the electricity is generated locally from solar panel. Why doesn’t government start to initiate and encourage people to install solar panel so that they could lower their electricity bill and the government doesn’t have to subsidy the electric generation as much due to the lower consumption from the household. Take a look at how UK is implementing these policies and it’s a win-win situation. Our country is blessed with so much solar power and yet we have not fully utilized them.
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generating-energy/Choosing-a-renewable-technology/Solar-panels-PV
2. I hope we are not spending too much money in researching the electric car because it is very obvious that the electric car industry is not ready yet. Hybrid car might be work. The challenge with hybrid car is most probably due to the higher cost compared to a conventional fuel car. I guess the government thinktank needs to evaluate the benefits of using hybrid versus conventional fuel and the effect of the fuel consumption between the two and the environmental effect.
3. Traffic congestion has a knock-on effect. Business depends on transportation and effective transportation is essential. Public transport esp. buses are unable to arrive on time. Public transport is unable to operate consistently. More people will opt to use public transport but there is a very big problem with our existing infrastructure. Train does not coverage a lot of places and challenges is we have a big area to cover (that’s is just because we look at the whole of klang valley, Kuala Lumpur, Kajang Area). What we should really focus on is good Train coverage and interconnection only WITHIN Kuala Lumpur City itself. Train operator should not operate independently of others, they should be able to link from one to the other (that’s a first requirement). If we fail to do this basic requirement, forget about interconnecting larger areas. By doing this, people will have more confidence with the public transport and then we can expand other the outer areas into KL. This will bring down the number of cars into the city and start to impose so-call “congestion charge” (charges similar to what they have in UK London – to go into certain parts of Kuala Lumpur City during Peak Hours). But, in order to do this, there must be a good public infrastructure for the people to park their cars and then walk to take a train station to go into KL area. By doing this, it will motivate people to use public transport within the Kuala Lumpur City. If we can’t expand the roads into the City, the only way we can prevent a crawl is to reduce the number of cars on the roads. The road will then not comes to a standstill during rush hours and the city can then move. These are just some of the suggestions but we definitely need a smart group of people who can do proper city planning and not just a group of people who thinks of a way to pull more money out of the people’s pocket by raising the KL property assessment rate without any kind of improvement/increase in their service.
4. All the above are no easy task, same goes with when Tun suggested to build the north south highway, opposition opposes but today one will wonder how can we survive without it. We need to have a leader that can see beyond our needs today. Certainly we are lacking criteria of such leaders with the current current chief in command. When Tun built the SMART tunnel, it was a brilliant idea; even with the SMART tunnel, KL still gets flooded. All these are no easy project but brilliant project coming from a leader with vision. Money well spent! Today (over the past 10 years), we have not progressed anywhere and I would be optimistic to say that we (Malaysia) are staying at where we were 10 years ago, but when other people/country are progressing and moving forward at a fast pace and we are not moving at all, the end result is that we are lagging behind compared to others. Try asking people in the street on the cost of living over the past 5 years. It is getting out of control. Reason being the price of daily goods and meal have increased significantly but people income have not come anywhere near to that. I believe economy and crime rate comes hand in hand together. Until relevant people start to look at it critically and stop relying just on the KPI, things will not improve.
5. If something is wrong, we need to go back to the root and face it and deal with it even if it means hardship. This is what happened to the Japanese and they rise up again. Same goes with Ireland. From a bankrupt country, they are now the fastest growing economy in Europe.
Sorry for my nagging and I wish all the best of health to you (Tun) and my beloved country!
Tun,
Terima kasih kerana memberi maklumat yang berguna. Kepada baby pula yang menulis seperti seorang baby (tulisan lebih kurang sama seperti aso HBT456, cicit aso HBT456? he..he..he) go play…play your toys in the cradle lah.
Baby masih kecil lagi, hingus pun tak tahu lap sendiri buat apa peningkan kepala dalam dunia politik orang dewasa?
Untuk mudah lagi, baby boleh cepat-cepat minta daddy cross itu causeway register sebagai itu rakyat setia diktator LKY, supaya tidak pening kepala memikirkan pasal Proton.
Sana, baby kena belajar kuat-kuat lo, kalau tidak belajar pandai dan boloh nanti itu taiko LKY kata baby cuma layak cuci longkang di Singapore mar.he…he…he.
Salam Tun.
Australian no learn from Malaysia mistake. If got so little population, dun’t-lah go itchy buttock open a national car factory. Singapore got national car or not ? Taiwan got national car or not ? Hong Kong ?
If it SO obviously not viable … cepat-cepat lah close down. Ini go and drag here and there, menyusahkan rakyat just to pay huge salaries to a couple of useless cronies. Lower employee can go work with other car factories mar. Engineers also can go other company to work. The higher paid so call stupeed useless EXECUTIVES … suruh balik kampung cuci longkang lor.
Proton is a MISTAKE. Just admit it and start to move forward. There are much more important things than Proton.
Tun, I don’t know if you read this. Never saw you reply even once to any of those comments, maybe i missed it.
but anyway.
What happened to our legislators, Tun? everything going uphill; oil price, taxes, electric bill tariff, highway tolls…
What happened to our ministers, Tun? their answers for the new legislations sound quite dumb and weirdly, seems to be scripted.
Pardon my french, but do our country in a really deep shit financially that nobody could do anything about it?
And lastly, what happened to you, Tun? Missed the young you, our hero with unsung deeds…
Salam Tun,
Nice write-up. It is obvious that if Proton going into hybrid and electric car market without defending the conventional car market is not a good strategy.
Between hybrid car and electric car, hybrid car is more practical. In Japan, by observing the number of car that passes in the university, I hypothesize that almost 20% of sedan is “Prius” and Japanese prefer Prius than Insight. Most senior Japanese lecturers drive Prius or small car even if their salary is way above RM 30,000 per month. Of course, they think the Malaysian student who drive gas guzzling MPV in the university are either mad or crazily rich. And to follow the advice of those who want to see AP and taxed abolish (so that they can buy expsensive gas guzzler) will only see more and more foreign made small cars driven in Malaysia road and reduce Proton market share.
While electric car is something of the future needs infra; and often the customer has to buy a package including the charging infrastructure rather than buying only the car. If electricity tariff is constant throughout the day and is perpetually going up, not many people would be interested in electric car. Imagine this scenario, if solar and wind energy is trapped in an energy storage during the day, and then is used to charge electric car during the night, or if the night time electric tariff is significantly lower than fuel cost such that people would want to take advantage on the differences, then electric car would be viable. In Japan , fuel is not subsidized and is taxed but it is still not sufficient for electric car market. It would be one day be a market , maybe 10 or 15 years in the future.
So, I opine that if Proton put too much focus on products which others (who are more “developed” than us) are still struggling to create a market is a very bad idea. What Proton need to do now is more defending current market share of conventional car.
Japanese and Korean cars have a combined effect of nice design, effecient technology and lower price. I heard some people said that designing Gen2 costed Proton billion of dollars. If it is true, that is just to much. But frankly Gen 2 has quite a nice design compared to other Proton product offerings. Perhaps what Proton can do is to hire a few design student from Lim Kok Wing University to scatch a number of good design cars and test it by showing to the market , which of the design the market would like most and let the design engineers think about creating it using rapid protoyping machine, developing the tools and mould. That may cost less than a million ? Maybe .
Salam Tun,
saya tak fikir syarikat petroleum antarabangsa akan taja sebarang perlumbaan kereta lumba elektrik F1 di Sepang atau pun mana-mana litar lumba. Lagipun stok minyak yang banyak tersimpan tu, harganya akan jatuh mendadak kalau kereta elektrik jadi pilihan utama pembeli.
Baru-baru ni seorang gadis keturunan India di US telah mencipta bateri handphone yang boleh dicas dalam masa 30-saat sahaja!
Enjin cucuh minyak, akan jadi bahan pameran dalam arkib museum 10 tahun dari sekarang. Waktu itu nanti, memang kerajaan Pakatan(?) tak bagi subsidi minyak lagi.
Kerajaan Australia sepatutnya berlapang dada apabila Holden diambil alih GM – buat apa susah-susah nak biaya AUD200 juta setahun, sekadar nostalgia kereta nasional? Saya juga ada simpan Alfa-Romeo Giulia di sebelah reban ayam di belakang rumah kerana masih terperangkap dalam nostalgia cinta Giulia.
Dengan berkuat-kuasa TPPA, nanti banyaklah kereta elektrik Tesla yang akan masuk ke negara-negara peserta. Apatah lagi dengan pemansuhan tariff, kereta elektrik akan jadi lebih murah untuk dibeli. Salesman Proton akan gigit jari sampai kudong.
Enjin dan kerangka kereta minyak bolehlah dikitar semula dalam industri keluli.
Udara di bandaraya KL pun akan jauh lebih bersih dari sekarang. Kualiti hidup dan kesihatan rakyat akan terpelihara.
PETRONAS boleh tutup kedai !
yet they say malaysia no need to protect proton…
only people with less education on national car, who will not support national brands..
shame on you guys!!
Dear Tun, kenapa Tun tidak memajukan sistem pengangkutan awam di Malaysia ?
Kenapa bas RapidKL banyak tak ikut jadual ?
Kenapa sistem pengangkutan bas di Lembah Klang begitu lembab dan menyusahkan ? Kenapa terlalu banyak syarikat pengendali bas di Lembah Klang, sedangkan di negara maju rata2 cuma ada 1 sahaja pengendali bas di bandar utama. Ini lebih menyenangkan.
Kenapa KTM Komuter terlalu perlahan ? Terutama dari KL ke Pelabuhan Klang.
Kenapa hentian2 bas RapidKL di sekitar Lembah Klang tak ada sistem jadual & timetable eletronic ?
Kenapa kita semua kena beli kereta ? Banyak wang dihabiskan untuk bayar ansuran bulanan kereta + petrol .
Kalau Malaysia ada sistem pengangkutan awam ( terutama bas tempatan ) seperti di Turki, Jepun, UK dan sebagainya, perbelanjaan rakyat dapat dikurangkan. Kesesakan jalan raya juga berkurangan.
Diharap Tun dapat menyuarakan pendapat saya kepada menteri2 yg terlibat. Pada pandangan saya , kita perlukan sistem pengangkutan awam yg moden & canggih, bukan menggalakkan rakyat membeli kereta .