In the wake of the reappointment of Dr. Mahathir as Proton's chairman has led to another set back for the Malaysian automotive industry. As expected by many observers that if Dr. Mahathir is reappointed as the chairman of Proton he will exercise his influence over the company and the government. Since his reappointment he has requested US$2 billion from the Government to pay for all the research and development Proton has done. This of course to any sensible person would sound ridiculous since Proton is a private company and the Government should have nothing to do with how Proton performs.
It is widely expected that Dr. Mahathir will ask the Government to provide some sort of protection for Proton again. Proton has struggled with their new models in the recent years and saw their market share decline substantially. Proton being his pet project since the 1980s he was not going to let it close down without some kind of help. The problem is the help that he seeks is again from the Government which in turn gets money from the tax payers. Asking any man on the street whether they would want to see Proton be bailed out and the answer is a flat "NO!". The average Malaysian is sick and tired of having to pay high prices for something that is a necessity and not a luxury.
It won't be long before the Government will cave into the demands of Dr. Mahathir and impose some sort of protection for Proton at the expense of the other car makers who have invested billions to build their facilities in Malaysia.
The Government's original plan of liberalizing the automotive industry will definitely take a step back and that also means the end of lowering import taxes on cars. Foreign car companies who invested millions in their production or assembly plants will feel betrayed by the Government. No one would blame them for wanting to relocate their facilities to India or Indonesia where the market is bigger and they would not face such inconsistent policies from the Government.
No one wants to pay more than they have to for a simple car, but in Malaysia it is a luxury to own car no thanks to a certain individual who has their own personal agenda.
Thursday, 31 July 2014
Friday, 20 June 2014
Supercar inter-car club endurance go kart race
Having been out of the racing seat for several years and minimal time in a go-kart in the last 5 years got me concerned when I represented the Porsche Club for the annual inter-car club Go kart endurance race. The odds were stacked against my team which was made up of former go-kart champions and hobby go-kart racers and we had to race against professionals who were active Touring car race drivers and former regional go-kart champions.
Looking ahead at the event endurance go-kart race is about consistency and reliability rather than outright speed. One of the drivers having the ability to put in super fast lap times every now and then will not cut it if the remainder of the team is slow. Finishing the race was also key to having the chance to win the race. We had to formulate our strategy in order to remain in the hunt.
Qualifying started and we qualified 4th in a field of 7 teams. Not good and not bad either. The top 3 positions were filled by teams who fielded professional drivers as expected. The crunch time came when the race started. Our objective was to always remain on the lead lap and never get ourselves one lap down. Driver 1 did a sterling job to keep our team on the lead lap and maintained our position of 4th overall when he came in for the driver change. Next up I had to take the driving honours and make sure that we remained in the hunt and not drop off a lap down. The other teams also chose to pit and change drivers.
The pressure was on me to made sure nothing goes wrong and not to wreck the kart. During my stint I was able to gain some advantage and passed 4 drivers (at this stage we unsure the positions of the other drivers) and made up ground and moved our team up to 2nd overall. Our 3rd driver once again continued the job and passed another 2 drivers (again not sure about the positions of other drivers) and moved us up to 1st.
Things started to get interesting as other teams started to have problems with their karts and were not pushing consistent lap times.On the second half of the race things got heated up as our team kept trading positions with 2 teams.
With the race coming to a close in 11 minutes we were 2nd overall but we had already done all our mandatory pit stops and the lead time still had to make their last pit stop. This gave us the advantage and our last drive was crucial to stay in the lead. The first team pitted and lost more than 30 seconds to us and were unable to make up ground.
On a day where we faced an uphill battle, our strategy and consistency prevailed and got us the trophy.
Looking ahead at the event endurance go-kart race is about consistency and reliability rather than outright speed. One of the drivers having the ability to put in super fast lap times every now and then will not cut it if the remainder of the team is slow. Finishing the race was also key to having the chance to win the race. We had to formulate our strategy in order to remain in the hunt.
Qualifying started and we qualified 4th in a field of 7 teams. Not good and not bad either. The top 3 positions were filled by teams who fielded professional drivers as expected. The crunch time came when the race started. Our objective was to always remain on the lead lap and never get ourselves one lap down. Driver 1 did a sterling job to keep our team on the lead lap and maintained our position of 4th overall when he came in for the driver change. Next up I had to take the driving honours and make sure that we remained in the hunt and not drop off a lap down. The other teams also chose to pit and change drivers.
The pressure was on me to made sure nothing goes wrong and not to wreck the kart. During my stint I was able to gain some advantage and passed 4 drivers (at this stage we unsure the positions of the other drivers) and made up ground and moved our team up to 2nd overall. Our 3rd driver once again continued the job and passed another 2 drivers (again not sure about the positions of other drivers) and moved us up to 1st.
Things started to get interesting as other teams started to have problems with their karts and were not pushing consistent lap times.On the second half of the race things got heated up as our team kept trading positions with 2 teams.
With the race coming to a close in 11 minutes we were 2nd overall but we had already done all our mandatory pit stops and the lead time still had to make their last pit stop. This gave us the advantage and our last drive was crucial to stay in the lead. The first team pitted and lost more than 30 seconds to us and were unable to make up ground.
On a day where we faced an uphill battle, our strategy and consistency prevailed and got us the trophy.
Sunday, 25 May 2014
Proton appointed their founding father as the Chairman and Advisor
After floundering for years building rubbish quality cars that no one wants to buy, Proton decided to try to stop the slide by appointing their founder Dr. Mahathir as their Chairman and Advisor. Many observers are scoffing at this because Dr.M does not take competition lightly and only knows who to create protection for any company he has interests in. All this came in the wake of Malaysia starting to liberalize the automotive industry after decades of protectionism of Proton. Proton has failed miserably to make itself a proper global car maker despite having massive head starts over car companies from China, Korea and India. Proton was cash rich in the 1990s and made the biggest mistake of buying loss making motorcycle company Augusta and sports car maker Lotus.
Numerous Proton parts suppliers and consultants revealed that the company is not only riddled with corruption at almost every level but also their engineering team is incompetent. Parts suppliers complained that the only way to secure a parts supply deal is to provide sufficient kick backs to authorizing personnel in the company at the expense of quality parts which was hardly surprising since Proton parts are notoriously poor quality. Consultants who visited their plant and engineering team also noticed the engineering team's lack of expertise and knowledge on car design and manufacturing.
One of the main examples was the in-house designed Proton Satria Neo. The engineering team forgot to incorporate the height of the seat rails as part of the measurement for head room inside the car cabin, upon receiving the seats from the seat factory, they only realized that the seat rail had to be added! hence... the seat position is much higher than it should be and this affected the head room of the cabin. Tall drivers would struggle to get in and sit comfortably.
Proton's own design engine the Campro which supposedly was designed to have the cam profiling function to help engine performance was a fuel guzzler and lacked torque and refinement. The engine was coarse and matched to a poorly chosen transmission which made the car sluggish and dull to drive.
After being forced to buy a badly made and badly designed car, how much longer does the Malaysian public have to put up with such poor quality cars from Proton. If the company is losing money hand over fist and is incapable of designing their own cars the least it should do is shut down or just focus on rebadging better designed cars from other car manufacturers.
Dr.M's argument is that if Proton closed down over 100,000 people will lose their jobs. The answer to that is a YES and a NO. Yes. a lot of people will lose their jobs, No, if the Government does not have to protect Proton and liberalizes the car industry and mandate that foreign car companies must have a local assembly operation in the country in order to sell cars (or enjoy lower taxes), it would see that most of the 100,000 people be employed again plus create greater business and employment opportunities from the supporting industry for the investments pumped in by the foreign car companies.
Dr.M's argument is lame to say the least but it is a plain attempt to save the company he started.
Malaysia's automotive industry just became bleaker!
Numerous Proton parts suppliers and consultants revealed that the company is not only riddled with corruption at almost every level but also their engineering team is incompetent. Parts suppliers complained that the only way to secure a parts supply deal is to provide sufficient kick backs to authorizing personnel in the company at the expense of quality parts which was hardly surprising since Proton parts are notoriously poor quality. Consultants who visited their plant and engineering team also noticed the engineering team's lack of expertise and knowledge on car design and manufacturing.
One of the main examples was the in-house designed Proton Satria Neo. The engineering team forgot to incorporate the height of the seat rails as part of the measurement for head room inside the car cabin, upon receiving the seats from the seat factory, they only realized that the seat rail had to be added! hence... the seat position is much higher than it should be and this affected the head room of the cabin. Tall drivers would struggle to get in and sit comfortably.
Proton's own design engine the Campro which supposedly was designed to have the cam profiling function to help engine performance was a fuel guzzler and lacked torque and refinement. The engine was coarse and matched to a poorly chosen transmission which made the car sluggish and dull to drive.
After being forced to buy a badly made and badly designed car, how much longer does the Malaysian public have to put up with such poor quality cars from Proton. If the company is losing money hand over fist and is incapable of designing their own cars the least it should do is shut down or just focus on rebadging better designed cars from other car manufacturers.
Dr.M's argument is that if Proton closed down over 100,000 people will lose their jobs. The answer to that is a YES and a NO. Yes. a lot of people will lose their jobs, No, if the Government does not have to protect Proton and liberalizes the car industry and mandate that foreign car companies must have a local assembly operation in the country in order to sell cars (or enjoy lower taxes), it would see that most of the 100,000 people be employed again plus create greater business and employment opportunities from the supporting industry for the investments pumped in by the foreign car companies.
Dr.M's argument is lame to say the least but it is a plain attempt to save the company he started.
Malaysia's automotive industry just became bleaker!
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
BMW i8 - signs of things to come
BMW recently introduced their i8 hybrid sports car. On paper it looks quite impressive considering that it has a 3 cylinder 1.5 litre turbo engine with an electric motor. The design is very clever in the way that it uses both the engine and motor for real performance that can humble traditional sports cars but yet return fantastic fuel economy. The car was designed with a single purpose of efficiency but not forgetting the fun factor. The electric motor offers serious grunt when the driver calls upon maximum performance.
The car does not look ugly like a typical boring Japanese hybrid. It turns the design concept upside down where the exterior and interior looks like the car is from 20 years in the future. The car on its own looks like something from Buck Rogers and instills some curiosity from onlookers and also the driver.
I believe that this car is quite a revolution in the hybrid world and is definitely going to change the way we look at hybrid engine and hybrid cars. It is not something to laugh but it definitely a great step forward for hybrid cars. BMW did think completely outside the box when designing and engineering the i8 and they did a fantastic job.
The car does not look ugly like a typical boring Japanese hybrid. It turns the design concept upside down where the exterior and interior looks like the car is from 20 years in the future. The car on its own looks like something from Buck Rogers and instills some curiosity from onlookers and also the driver.
I believe that this car is quite a revolution in the hybrid world and is definitely going to change the way we look at hybrid engine and hybrid cars. It is not something to laugh but it definitely a great step forward for hybrid cars. BMW did think completely outside the box when designing and engineering the i8 and they did a fantastic job.
Monday, 21 April 2014
Luxgen Taiwan - Taiwan's own home grown car maker
For a small country Taiwan has done very well for itself especially in the technology and consumer electronics field. It is known for their big brands like Acer, HTC, Mio, Garmin, Asus and Tatung. It was never know for its automotive industry because in the past all it did was sell cars made in Europe, US, Korea and Japan.
6 years ago major car assembly company YuLong decided to take a big risk and embark on making their own car branded as Luxgen. Up to now they have 4 production models with another 2 possible new models hitting the market in 2015. For a car company with so little history they have done very well. The engine is self developed and coupled with an Aisin 6 speed gearbox. The engineering team took a lot of lessons from other car companies by sharing parts and platform to keep the production costs low. Their current model line up include a SUV, MPV, cross over SUV and a sedan. Each model has some similarity with one another showing their same Luxgen DNA.
Being an electronics hub in Asia, Luxgen took the opportunity and fully equip the car with electronic gadgetry such as multi camera parking system, full multimedia system, digital displays, climate control air conditioning, multi sensor parking system and an innovative dash board design. Luxgen showed its dedication to improve their car by constantly researching new parts and components to help their car compete with bigger car makers with more experience.
In early 2014, Luxgen's R&D team based in Taipei set the lap record for a production car in the Pen Bay Circuit beating other major car makers.
Their cars are now sold in China, Russia, Middle East and Vietnam. it is always good to see a new car maker trying their very best to improve themselves to make themselves competitive on the world stage.
6 years ago major car assembly company YuLong decided to take a big risk and embark on making their own car branded as Luxgen. Up to now they have 4 production models with another 2 possible new models hitting the market in 2015. For a car company with so little history they have done very well. The engine is self developed and coupled with an Aisin 6 speed gearbox. The engineering team took a lot of lessons from other car companies by sharing parts and platform to keep the production costs low. Their current model line up include a SUV, MPV, cross over SUV and a sedan. Each model has some similarity with one another showing their same Luxgen DNA.
Being an electronics hub in Asia, Luxgen took the opportunity and fully equip the car with electronic gadgetry such as multi camera parking system, full multimedia system, digital displays, climate control air conditioning, multi sensor parking system and an innovative dash board design. Luxgen showed its dedication to improve their car by constantly researching new parts and components to help their car compete with bigger car makers with more experience.
In early 2014, Luxgen's R&D team based in Taipei set the lap record for a production car in the Pen Bay Circuit beating other major car makers.
Their cars are now sold in China, Russia, Middle East and Vietnam. it is always good to see a new car maker trying their very best to improve themselves to make themselves competitive on the world stage.
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Coming to terms with a 997 Carrera S
Having finally bought myself a 997 Carrera S, it took me a while to really come to terms with this car. I have owned all types of front engine turbo cars with front drive and rear drive and even four wheel drive. I test drove a lot of 911s in my life together with the Caymans and Boxsters but never owned one long term until recently.
I did spend 2 full days in a 997 turbo prior to my purchase and I found the car too light at the front for my liking but then again that car had a tonne of torque which meant that under heavy acceleration the front will naturally lift and make the front end feel very light.
The 997 Carrera S was actually very easy to live with and having a naturally aspirated 3.8 litre engine mated to the PDK gearbox the car was very tractable at low speeds. The newer 3.8 litre engine in this car had direct injection which helped the car's engine response even with the slightest touch of the throttle.
Most people who say that having driven a 997 Turbo you would love to have that extra 80hp but in reality the Carrera S is fast enough and gives you a greater sensation of control and feel of the car rather than just the massive shove in the back when the turbo kicks in. The front end of the car did feel light like a typical 911 but it was not as pronounced as the turbo model. The car's turn in was good and the wide rear tyres was confidence inspiring. Where I live requires me to drive through a winding street that snakes around a hill giving me plenty of chance to put the car through its pace. If a car does not have good handling the effect is very clearly demonstrated on this piece or tarmac. The 3.8 litre engine is very linear in power delivery which means that it is very predictable to drive.
the only 1 gripe with the car is the brakes. It takes a bit of getting used to. The driver has to press quite hard on the brake pedal to initiate any kind of speed retardation but once you get used to this the brakes are actually very good.
The best part about the car was the Sport Chrono function which came with the Sport Plus button. This little button really changes the behavior of the car from sporty to very angry. The engine would very willing spin to the redline and the suspension will stiffen up to reduce body roll. The animal really comes out and feels like the car will squeeze out the extra 5 to 10hp. It is definitely more applicable on the race track but nevertheless it is still fun on a empty piece of road.
Many motoring journalists have given good reviews about the 911 as the sports car of the century. I have to agree. The engineers have poured in enough hours to improve the car to such a point that it is a real driver's car. they also managed to overcome the rear pendulum effect and made the car drive very well.
I did spend 2 full days in a 997 turbo prior to my purchase and I found the car too light at the front for my liking but then again that car had a tonne of torque which meant that under heavy acceleration the front will naturally lift and make the front end feel very light.
The 997 Carrera S was actually very easy to live with and having a naturally aspirated 3.8 litre engine mated to the PDK gearbox the car was very tractable at low speeds. The newer 3.8 litre engine in this car had direct injection which helped the car's engine response even with the slightest touch of the throttle.
Most people who say that having driven a 997 Turbo you would love to have that extra 80hp but in reality the Carrera S is fast enough and gives you a greater sensation of control and feel of the car rather than just the massive shove in the back when the turbo kicks in. The front end of the car did feel light like a typical 911 but it was not as pronounced as the turbo model. The car's turn in was good and the wide rear tyres was confidence inspiring. Where I live requires me to drive through a winding street that snakes around a hill giving me plenty of chance to put the car through its pace. If a car does not have good handling the effect is very clearly demonstrated on this piece or tarmac. The 3.8 litre engine is very linear in power delivery which means that it is very predictable to drive.
the only 1 gripe with the car is the brakes. It takes a bit of getting used to. The driver has to press quite hard on the brake pedal to initiate any kind of speed retardation but once you get used to this the brakes are actually very good.
The best part about the car was the Sport Chrono function which came with the Sport Plus button. This little button really changes the behavior of the car from sporty to very angry. The engine would very willing spin to the redline and the suspension will stiffen up to reduce body roll. The animal really comes out and feels like the car will squeeze out the extra 5 to 10hp. It is definitely more applicable on the race track but nevertheless it is still fun on a empty piece of road.
Many motoring journalists have given good reviews about the 911 as the sports car of the century. I have to agree. The engineers have poured in enough hours to improve the car to such a point that it is a real driver's car. they also managed to overcome the rear pendulum effect and made the car drive very well.
Monday, 17 March 2014
F1 - the new vs the old
The new Formula One season just kicked off with the Australian GP. The big difference this year is the introduction of new regulations with new engines and new KERS system. All the changes were made to make the sport more exciting and also to make the sport Greener! if that is ever possible!
The new 1.6 litre turbo engine is aimed at higher fuel efficiency but it has taken away the shrieking exhaust note from the old 2.4 litre V8 engine. Many fans complained that the car has lost its character and is no longer as interesting. Apart from the sound the new regulations have made the sport more interesting from the spectators point of view. The new KERS system is much more powerful with 160hp extra power and 33 seconds worth of boost. The drag reduction system also has a greater effect allowing easier overtaking.
The smaller front and rear wings also mean that the cars will have less down force making it more tricky to drive this will see more drivers making mistakes to allow more overtaking. The first race was a good preview of what is yet to come for this season. Some of the former midfield teams may just pull out some surprises over the top teams.
Several of the rookies showed their skill in the season opening race with Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo making a name for themselves by taking on the former world champions and beating them convincingly. The 2014 will definitely shape up to be an exciting season indeed.
The new 1.6 litre turbo engine is aimed at higher fuel efficiency but it has taken away the shrieking exhaust note from the old 2.4 litre V8 engine. Many fans complained that the car has lost its character and is no longer as interesting. Apart from the sound the new regulations have made the sport more interesting from the spectators point of view. The new KERS system is much more powerful with 160hp extra power and 33 seconds worth of boost. The drag reduction system also has a greater effect allowing easier overtaking.
The smaller front and rear wings also mean that the cars will have less down force making it more tricky to drive this will see more drivers making mistakes to allow more overtaking. The first race was a good preview of what is yet to come for this season. Some of the former midfield teams may just pull out some surprises over the top teams.
Several of the rookies showed their skill in the season opening race with Kevin Magnussen and Daniel Ricciardo making a name for themselves by taking on the former world champions and beating them convincingly. The 2014 will definitely shape up to be an exciting season indeed.
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