Proton and Dr. Mahathir (Proton's founder) is at it again asking the Malaysia public to buy Proton cars and to test drive it before it passing it over for another car brand. Malaysians have been suffering for far too long when it comes to buying cars since the inception of Proton in the mid 1980s. Ever since Proton was introduced the Malaysian Government introduced various taxes on foreign brands to protect Proton. This worked for many years and Proton got too complacent thinking that this will last forever and did nothing to improve itself. Soon corruption started to creep into the company as it was too lucrative for the senior members of Proton not to indulge in such good financial opportunities for self enrichment. The corruption got so bad that poor quality parts were replacing good parts for the sake of profit for a few individuals. This obviously meant that the quality of the car suffered creating a bad reputation.
this went on for years and no one did anything about it. The culture of corruption within the company was so bad that parts suppliers had to be ready to pay various individuals to secure contracts and to secure payments. With the quality suffering year on year the Malaysian public was fed up with having to buy substandard quality cars that compromised on safety at inflated prices. Increasingly more and more Malaysians switched to alternative brands and were willing to more for a better built car. The introduction of Perodua also didn't help Proton's cause since Perodua introduced small compact cars that were of better quality and were cheaper than Proton. This naturally meant that Proton's market share was being eaten away by many competitors.
Despite tying up with European testing standard TUV, Proton couldn't turn around its bad quality image. With dwindling sales, poor profits and huge loss for purchasing MV Augusta and Lotus, Proton's cash pile was drying up fast. If Proton was well managed from the beginning Proton would be very profitable today and of course not purchase a dying motorcycle company MV Augusta and to sell it off for Euro1. Proton's management made many mistakes from the start and this meant that it was on a path to its own grave.
Now Dr. Mahathir is again asking Malaysians to save his pet project which has took such a toll on the Malaysian automotive industry. No one in their right minds would want to buy another Proton. The trust is gone and no one believes that Proton is able to deliver anything it has promised. Proton still owes Honda a lot of money for the old Honda Accord they bought to rebadge as the Perdana. Honda has stopped supplying Proton until payment is made. Proton recently signed an agreement with Suzuki which looks like a sign of desperation for Proton to quickly get another model to do more rebadging in order to have more models to sell. It is unsure whether Suzuki will benefit more from this or Proton but either way, Proton is desperate to stay alive. It also announced that they are working with engineering house Ricardo to develop new engines and gearboxes for future models. All this is all just hot news, we have seen Proton pull out of collaborations in the last moment for god knows what reason. Without fresh funding it will be hard for Proton to develop new models and without economies of scale, any new car model they develop will be costly.
With the present Government not interested in protecting Proton since they do not get along with Dr. Mahathir it is very likely that Proton will shut down in the next few years when it is completely out of money.
It is really time to pull the curtains on Proton... a seriously long overdue termination.
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