Proton's collaboration with Suzuki

Proton started out in 1985 as a car maker that only knew how to assemble cars rather than build its own cars. It decided to try its hand at designing and building its own cars in 2000 and it failed miserably with the models being rough, poor fuel consumption, jerky and of low quality. Proton went back to assembling cars again with Mitsubishi and Honda. Now looks like Proton has given up on building its own cars and gone full steam with assembling cars with it recent collaboration with Suzuki.
From the images that have leaked out Proton is aiming at fighting Perodua head on with a Suzuki model that is similar in size with the Perodua Myvi. Proton's engineering team appears to be at least 15 years behind and can only retool their equipment to assemble cars. The design and development team seem to be lost and going the route of being an assembler rather than a proper car maker is definitely more suitable for Proton. Without the right expertise to develop its own cars it isn't so bad to be a car assembler.

Companies like Luxgen in Taiwan was a car assembling company which in the last 5 years decided to develop its own model. It took a while to gain acceptance but they took the knowledge they gained from assembling cars to develop their own in-house models. So far from what has been seen in motorshows and even reviews in Taiwan car magazines the Luxgen models are quickly catching up with the Korean car makers which is quite an achievement since its car building history is not every extensive. Unfortunately despite the long history that Proton has had, it has achieved practically nothing. They cannot compete on the international level and even in the domestic market it has fallen behind Honda and Toyota for sales volume. The walk towards the grave is getting shorter by the year for Proton. The Malaysian public cannot accept another bail out for Proton.