Malaysia: one of the most expensive places to own a car

For most developed countries owning a car is like owning a mobile phone. It is just a product and it is just used mainly for transportation purposes, sometimes with some luxury appeal and status symbol.
In Malaysia owning a car is a luxury, especially an imported car. Being a developing country, Malaysia ranks right up there with countries which slaps some of the highest import tax and other associated levies on imported cars to  protect its local car manufacturer Proton, which was created by the Prime Minister at the time, Dr Mahathir.
Being a nation going through industrialization the idea seemed to be a good one at the time but as time went on more and more protection was created to help Proton grow. However the main idea of creating Proton was to make car ownership affordable and an average income family can afford to buy a car. This concept went out the window when Proton got so complacent with Govt protection they didn't care about the quality of the cars and coupled that with corrupt officials inside Proton taking kickbacks to purchase substandard parts for the car. The price of Proton cars steadily climbed and this made owning a Proton increasingly expensive.
The quality of the car were down right shocking with power windows not working, constant rattling of the dash board (new car!), creaking sounds from the steering column, no safety laminated front windscreens, cheap two layer body paint to name a few. These cars were also not crash worthy.
Fast forward 28 years to the present day, given a choice no Malaysian would want to buy a Proton. The company has introduced numerous new models but their own creations fail to impress anyone and the sale of the car is based purely on price. If the automotive market was open in Malaysia, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai would crush Proton in terms of out right sales. For a measly few thousand Ringgit more, all Malaysians would opt for a better designed, better made and better specced foreign car. The biggest insult to Malaysians is to pay high prices for lousy quality cars.

A simple comparison with the US, an average American earning US$2000 a month could easily afford to buy an entry level Honda Civic for US$13,000 in less than 2 years. In Malaysia an average Malaysian earning RM2,000 a month would have to save for easily 4 to 5 years for the down payment on a RM50,000 Proton. With this, we are not even comparing apple for apple. The RM50,000 Proton is far inferior in terms of quality, design, fuel efficiency and technology compared to the base model Honda Civic. The same Honda Civic model would cost RM115,000 which is almost 3 times more.
What this really means is that the Malaysian govt is not doing any justice to the Malaysian public. slapping crazy taxes on cars means that more of a person's salary is used to repay the car loan. The Govt will argue that they subsidize the fuel prices in Malaysia however I know many car owners would rather pay less tax on a car and pay slightly higher fuel prices. An average driver will not spend more than RM20,000 in fuel over the ownership period of the car. Saving RM20,000 or more on the price of the car makes more sense.

Malaysia may have the second highest car prices in Asia, it is still one notch better than Singapore which currently holds the title for the highest car prices in the world!!