Proton Goes To China
August 2, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
Proton Motors has announced its plans for China. Cashing in on the Chinese middle-class’ desire for cars, the Malaysian manufacturer has today signed agreements with major Chinese automotive companies Youngman Automobile Sales Co. Ltd and Youngman Automobile Group Ltd Co, to sell Proton vehicles and technology in China.
30,000 finished Proton Gen.2s will initially head to China and be sold under the Europestar brand. Eventually the aim is for Europestar to use the expertise of Proton owned Lotus to develop a new range of made-in-China Proton inspired cars.
Proton will benefit by selling its Gen.2 platform and the Proton Campro engine for Youngman’s new Europestar cars and for the supply of genuine spare parts.
The move comes amid a scramble by manufacturers to cash in on the Chinese middle-income group boom which is growing in size considerably. The Chinese car market is expected to grow by up to 30 per cent per annum over the next few years.
It is only a matter of time before Chinese cars find their way into Australia. CarAdvice is currently testing the first Indian car to make a comeback into the Australia market, the Mahindra Pikup. Expect a review on that soon.
Source: Proton
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LOL
Proton has pretty muched failed in every market it has tried to enter.
Done ok in My. but then again the home-market has around 150% tariff on imported cars, so its not even a level playing field.
I will give them $1 mill. for Lotus, they can keep the rest
Cheers
F-0
Good China can have them LOL…
It’ll win COTY in China.
At least they are designing new cars, not just rebadging Mitsubishi Lancer’s and Galants that we released half a decade prior. Owning Lotus is not exactly a bad thing, Proton may be having troubles, but they are going forward, and having some decend handling cars tweaked by Lotus can help life their image I suppose.
Failed in every market?
Well, sales have been improving in Europe and the middle east. They are being used as police cars in Birmingham, and Taxis in Indonesia and Iran.
Not too bad for a 20 year old company actually.
Done ok in My. but then again the home-market has around 150% tariff on imported cars, so its not even a level playing field.
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Even on a level playing field (without extra tariffs), an imported 1200kg japanese sedan will cost about RM70k otr… while a proton 1200kg sedan will be about RM50k otr.
So yeah, it will still be competitive.
Proton are somehow not relieable… Bunch of problems… The campro engine some review from malaysia named it “HALF BAKED CAMPRO”. hmm.. half baked… means it burns when you driving ??? LOL!! Pity malaysian were forced to buy them and put their life in risk…