Politics and cars

In my recent trip to China I had the opportunity to talk about the car industry with some locals who are in the automotive industry. China's automotive industry boomed since 2002 and it has not slowed down since then. Anyone and everyone wants a car as no one really wants to ride a bicycle anymore.

The interesting fact is that in the recent case of China's spat with Japan over some tiny island off the coast of Eastern China has had a direct impact on the sales of Japanese cars in China. Most of us living outside China had no clue how great the impact was as the news reported are usually not accurate. It turns out that the Chinese are very patriotic and since the news broke out about Japan buying the islands, a lot of Chinese have stopped buying Japanese cars, some have stop going to work at Toyota factories in China and some even refused to go to work at Toyota dealerships in China.

Many Chinese have also started selling off their Japanese cars as they didn't want to be seen driving a Japanese car. The impact of this political tension between the countries have serious consequences for Japan. Japan's economy is already in bad shape and offending a major trading partner like China where almost 40% of all Japanese cars are sold is not a smart move. The repercussions are not limited to cars of course, all other items suchs electronics, food products and etc are all effected.

If no action is taken to resolve the tension between the two countries, Japanese car makers will suffer tremendously. European, Korean and American car makers are now enjoying bumper sales at the expense of the Japanese.


In ASEAN the situation is quite different. Despite Japanese occupation in the 1940s people in Malaysia still love to buy Japanese products. Often the Japanese made cars are viewed as good quality, reliable and easy to maintain with good residual value. Same goes for the Thais and the Indonesians. The political impact is more domestic rather than cross border. There is rumours of an imminent shake up in the automotive industry in Malaysia as the Malaysian people are eagerly awaiting for the upcoming General Election. If the Opposition Party wins, taxes on cars will be reduced creating massive change in the automotive industry. The direct impact will be on residual values and affordability of new cars. Have ridiculously high taxes imposed on cars and having an inefficient public transport system the Malaysian public are basically forced into buy cars. This is often questioned if the inefficient public transport system is deliberate to help the Government generate billions of dollar through tax revenue. We shall see come 2013 if there will be a change.

Driving a Lamborghini Aventador vs Mercedes SLS

While visiting the SEMA show I dropped by Exotic Racing in Las Vegas Motor Speedway to drive the Lamborghini Aventador and the Mercedes SLS. Here is some insight into my experience.

Lamborghini Aventador-
This car is a very sophisticated piece of machinery with 4WD and a massive 6.5L V12 screaming engine. The car's interior is like a fighter jet cockpit with the fancy start button in the middle of the centre console and the LCD instrument cluster. The car itself was very easy to drive as the 4WD system is able to put the power down very efficiently and without too much drama. The real fun began when I well full throttle and push it all the way to the 9000rpm redline. Changing gears at full throttle is violent to say the least. you can literally feel the car's acceleration pause momentarily when the right shift lever was pulled. The handling was sharp as it can ever be with the car being so low on the ground and with massive front and rear tires. The grip was astonishing as you would never imagine a car this big could handle this well. Lamborghini engineers obviously worked very hard to keep the weight as low as possible to help with handling and speed.
The Aventador is very much like a Ginzu knife. It is sharp, agile and precise.

Mercedes SLS-
This car is one of a kind as it is truly a German muscle car. I won't call it a supercar as it does not really behave like a supercar. Most supercars are very sharp, agile and fast. In the case of the SLS it is no doubt fast but it not as agile as say a Ferrari 458. It is however very brutal as its huge 6.3L V8 churns out a tonne of torque that seems endless. Having only rear wheel drive the car is a bit liary to drive at the limits. The big block V8 has one of the best engine notes for a muscle car or a supercar. It is not a screaming engine like the Aventador or the Ferrari 458. It has the real sound of a true muscle car. The deep rumble and roar of the engine is highly intoxicating. The car itself is fast enough on the track but to drive it at the limit requires a bit of skill. Put your right down a bit too early mid corner you will find yourself going sideways out of the corner.

Both cars are a lot of fun on the track. The Lambo is more flashy with it bright color and outrageous V12 engine while the Merc has a more subdued look until you open the fancy gull wing door. Both cars can be driven daily but I think if you like behaving badly from time to time, I would recommend the SLS. It is just a hooligan inside waiting to escape.

Nascar Driving experience

I was recently in Las Vegas to attend the world famous SEMA show. Any guy who is into cars should visit the SEMA show at least once in their lifetime. While in Las Vegas I took the opportunity to drive a Nascar at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway with Richard Petty Driving Experience.

After having spent about 30 minutes in the briefing room I was ushered to the track side to get ready to drive the Nascar. Having driven a Formula race car, a WRC rally car and other various types of racing cars I was quite eager to try out the Nascar. Being a non American I seldom seeing Nascar on TV it was kind of interesting to see why the Americans love Nascar so much.

One of the good things about the Nascar driving experience was that the organizer did not water down the experience by giving you a tuned down car. The car I was going to drive was actually a full scale race prepared Nascar with the full 600+ hp with full slick tires and roll cage. Getting into the car itself was a bit of a challenge as I had to climb through the window (lucky I am not a very big guy). Having climbed into the car getting the car moving was simple enough as the clutch on the car was surprisingly soft. Once on the track the aim was to position the car to hit the painted markers on the track surface as this determined the ideal position where the car should be on the track.

Driving the car was actually far more simple than I imagined and required little skill. Going fast in the car was merely to follow the markers, lift off the throttle at the entry of the turn and putting your foot down again mid way through. All of this is done in 4th gear so there is minimal gear changing. Unlike the movies, the drivers do not really shift gears while zooming around the track. The real action is in the overtaking as all you need to do is draft behind another car and wait for the opportunity to overtake on the straights.

The fun for the spectators is in the overtaking and accidents. Being alone on the track is easy but when you have 30 other cars on the track it can be quite crowded making driving fast a real challenge.

I can sum it up as an interesting driving experience but not one that I would repeat as it was rather boring. Having spent so much time in a racing go-kart, the Nascar experience is really just not challenging enough and does not put your driving skills to the test.

Android system for car head units

The smart phone craze has hit the world hard and anyone who is tech savvy will want to buy one. The smart phone concept works well for people on the move and want connectivity all the time. The Android and IOS system works well on tablets and smart phones but is it practical for cars?
Some car head unit manufacturers have started to make head units using the Android platform as they predict will be a trend. Having seen numerous Android powered head units I start to question if this is really practical!
Android system allows the user to download Apps (short for applications) onto their head unit but in reality in the scenario of a car one would need only the main few functions such as Radio (or satellite radio in some countries), CD player (soon to be obsolete since people are downloading songs), GPS navigation system, USB / SD card input (for media storage and playback), Smartphone connectivity to allow media playback on the head unit from files stored on the smartphone. Android OS have over 600,000 Applications available for download and only a handful would be applicable for use in the car.
Applications such as Youtube or other video archive playback apps would only work well if the car is stationary and have a 3G or Wifi connection. It also won't be practical to play games while driving and the passenger playing the games would most likely suffer from motion sickness.

I personally feel that the Android system for car head units is just over kill.

Car tuning and so called forum experts

These days there are lots of automotive forums on the internet these days and thousands of people will voice their opinion on tuning and modifications. Some of the opinions are based on real life experience while many are based on things they read on the internet but without real world experience. These the so called "arm chair" tuners who will use the power of the internet to influence people but may not have the necessary experience to back it up.

There are also many forums which do offer good technical advise as the materials are written by professionals or tuners with years of experience. Some of course will have their vested interest to market their company's services or products.There are also some who will be happy to educate or impart their knowledge to readers. There is no definitive answer to who is right and who is wrong. The basis of the technical postings should be based on experience and technical background of the person posting their comments.

American tuners, Japanese tuners and European tuners all have different approach to tuning. Europeans usually will be more subtle in their approach and keep the car looking relative sedate while the Japanese will be more daring with their extreme body kits and outlandish color schemes. The Americans will go for out right muscle by putting in turbos, super chargers or NOS kits. All this makes the tuning industry very interesting and ever changing.

Every year the SEMA show in Las Vegas will show case some of the best examples of tuned cars. Some will be for aesthetics while others will be for performance and audio. In the tuning industry, stock is boring! everything can be modified and will be modified. 

Famous tuning magazines such as Option, Hot Imports, Fast 4s. Hot 4s and etc have a huge following worldwide as they appeal to the car owners with the itch for tuning.

These magazine have extensive technical information and also tips from professional tuners.

Extreme engine downsizing

The European car manufacturers have been adopting the engine downsizing for the last 6 years and with great effect. Now they have taken this concept one step further by reducing the engines even more and strapping on larger turbos to provide adequate performance.

BMW recently launched their 1 series with a new 1.5 litre 3 cylinder turbo engine capable of producing 180ps and 270Nm! It is lauded as a very bold move considering that none of the luxury car makers have tried to adopt a 3 cylinder engine. Car manufacturers resisted using 3 cylinder engines as they were not as smooth revving as the 4 cylinder engines and 3 cylinder engines were also noisier. BMW proved this all wrong with their new engine that was capable of very smooth revving and produced astonishing performance with good fuel economy. BMW is now considering to put it in an entry level 3 series to increase the usage of the engine and also promote better fuel economy for its range of cars.

In the past car makers such as Daihatsu and Suzuki have developed 3 cylinder engines for their K-Cars (super compact cars) but their engine capacities ranged from 660cc to 1,000cc. None of these engine were used on bigger models similar to the 1 series size as the engines lacked the performance to match the car's weight.

Ford also took engine downsizing to the extreme when they launched their 1.0 litre turbo engine. It was initially thought that this engine was meant to be used in the Ford Fiesta and Focus however, Ford took this one step further and put it in a Mondeo. The Mondeo is not exactly a small car and putting a 1.0 litre turbo engine took many motoring observers by surprise. The question is whether the consumers will accept this idea considering that the engine is so small and the car's physical size is of a mid size saloon that weighs around 1400kgs. The impressing thing about this 1.0 litre turbo is that is capable of producing 130hp and 200Nm making is very similar to a naturally aspirated 2.0 litre engine.

It is amazing how the high cost of fuel can drive engineers and car makers to think out of the box to create innovative products.

Will the Malaysian Govt really reduce the Excise duty on cars?

Traditionally excise duties are imposed on controlled or restricted items which the Government of the country want to control importation and distribution of. In the case of Malaysia the Government imposed excise duties on cars which to most people is complete absurd as cars should not be classified under controlled items similar to tobacco and alcohol. After signing the AFTA (Asean Free Trade Agreement), the Malaysian Govt had to comply with the agreement to reduce import taxes on cars manufactured in the ASEAN region. By doing this it meant that the Govt will lose tax revenue and could not protect Proton and Perodua. In the attempt to protect the local car industry, the excise duty was introduced as a way to gain back tax revenue and also continue to protect Proton and Perodua.

All this has resulted in sky high car prices which has hurt the Malaysian public. With a poor public transport network the Malaysian public have no choice but to buy a car and be saddled with a loan stretching almost 1 decade! Now with the emergence of the Opposition Party to challenge the currently ruling political Party and the pledge that the Opposition Party has made to reduce excise duties for car has put tremendous pressure on the ruling Party to follow suit.

The question now is whether this will materialise. Many are hoping that it will as it will help reduce the burden on new car owners but on the other hand the existing car owners will suffer heavy losses as their car's residual value will drop significantly. The banks or finance companies and used car dealers will also suffer losses. If the reduction is gradual the impact will not be quite as severe and if tax rebates are given to these companies to absorb some of the losses the effect will be cushioned. The Opposition Party's proposal is to gradually reduce the excise duties over 5 years which sounds very reasonable.

After 5 years of reducing excise duty, the resulting tax structure will be 10% sales tax and a maximum of 30% import duty (non ASEAN made cars). A car that once cost RM150,000 will be less than RM70,000 making car ownership less of a burden and the consumers will have a lot more disposable income.

New Zealand implemented such tax reductions in the 1990s and the reduction was also done gradually over several years. NZ now has one of the lowest car prices in the world.

I am hoping that this will materialise in Malaysia so we can avoid paid crazy prices for cars.