Pak Lah bashed Proton??

[xin]

no wonder Hongkong dun manufacture their own car ..lol ..err ..does Singapore has their national car ?

Proton is well aware that there is problem to their management and also to gain the confidence of public. With the loss that pertains and continues it is estimated that without other company to support Proton's resources would be depleted due on around 2009. I just don't understand, they got the tech, they got the place, they got all the resources needed to built and test a quality car (theres where Proton City purpose was). MMC bailed out and it all started off as a downfall for Proton too, why not they continue coorperation with MMC after the 20years contract.

 

[b00n]

forgot to mentioned; the failure in Proton is some sort quite similar to the failure in MAS too.......

 

[xin]

And again, xin; R3 was never meant to be tuners like NISMO, RALLIART, HKS etc....
R3 is a separate department for Proton's motorsport involvement. It's basically R3 that's helping Proton a favour by creating limited edition Satria R3 to get the market going. Or the launch is just a marketing gimmick to attract the crowds.

And what's with all lots of ppl saying if the car is turbo charged lar....tuned lar...blah blah...

We're building a family car which talks about comfort, usefulness and affordability.
Not racing and fun car.....Proton is not meant to go classic or exotic that's maybe why Lotus wasn't in there in the first place. As Lotus is meant to be branded as exotic super/sports car..where as Proton is meant to be mass produced for the family markets.

nope i never mentioned that R3 was meant as tuners (that was na_power that said)to tune up Proton cars but from what i meant is that since Proton owns Lotus (does they?), they could use the technology and involvement of Lotus. I am not asking of Proton to built a supersportscar with Lotus but a car that is reliable and comfortable wise as a Gti(the only Proton car that was tuned by Lotus). It was a great progress and if anyone of you that owns a gti would agree that the handling plus the comfortability is far more better than off a normal satria.

Just like how Proton start off, MMC's tech was made and taugh to Proton and Proton made good use of it. I just can;t see why a self owned Lotus is avail, they could put the tech in good use too since Lotus has been reputable in handling. We don;t need a sportcar, we need a car that would buck up public's confidence.

 

[xin]

oh and R3 is proton motorsport division. I am never keen to like R3, test drove satria R3 and gen2 r3 too ... they were made for one purpose ..to be faster, more power..basically a strip off all the sound deadening parts and other mechanical systems like abs and acc to lighten the car. Then tune up the avail engine that results to a more agresive(noisey eventually) nature.

So R3 was never meant for normal driving, not comfortable at all with all the noise. Once thing is the R3 has better handling and more power thats all. IMO nothing much of a contribute towards public or Proton.

 

[b00n]

that's what we lack.......QC......
that's why the fell out talk with VW and other makers.......QUALITY CONTROL......

btw, usually my comments are not targeted at any specific person...
so you don't necessary need to quote my comments....
kekeke....cheers!

Why not suggest how to change Proton's image instead of bashing them. We should be proud that we have a national car maker unlike many countries who doesn't...
Than again should we be proud?!......Yes if only they did a good job!

Management style should be changed, rebranding, Quality Control, marketing and business oriented management, stop hiding behind the Government....admit the failure and restart fresh!.....
that's my advice to PROTON!

 

[b00n]

oh and R3 is proton motorsport division. I am never keen to like R3, test drove satria R3 and gen2 r3 too ... they were made for one purpose ..to be faster, more power..basically a strip off all the sound deadening parts and other mechanical systems like abs and acc to lighten the car. Then tune up the avail engine that results to a more agresive(noisey eventually) nature.

So R3 was never meant for normal driving, not comfortable at all with all the noise. Once thing is the R3 has better handling and more power thats all. IMO nothing much of a contribute towards public or Proton.

haha.....yeap!...that's why I said that Satria R3 is only a marketing gimmick to get the ppl all hyped up on a fast tuned machine.
Especially the youngs.....remember me saying a lot of ppl was commenting on fast cars, turbo lar....all that...youner generation fast & furious mentality.....
*sigh*
so they turned to R3 to get some limited edition down the road. Satria GTI is also made for that purposes.
Again, R3 is a subset of Proton; i.e. to help involve in races.....so they're really not meant to be for general consumer.

 

[xin]

no problems i am not targeting anyone too hehe ..i has always hoped that Proton would do great and excel. I am proud when proton released Saga,Wira, Putra, Satria, Gti... but the later release was flushing my proudness away as much as to add dissapointment to it.

ya, my advise is start from zero one, restart everything.. we dun need Generation second cars when publics still thinks that generation one is better ..

 

[BlackSamurai]

Sorry, I dont mean to nitpick on you. But the public doesnt give Proton enough credit.

Proton is not stupid, not good enough they may be (even after 20 years of protection), but not stupid. If they could find a way to do what you said, Im sure they would have, but no one probably wanted to pay so much for a bag of debts at that time. If they kept Agusta their current loss would probably be close to a billion instead of just a 'mere' 590+m, they did release some financial information about the case sometime ago IIRC.

Such things happen not only in Proton, Ford, Jaguar and even Mitsubishi Motors and Nissan for example were in trouble as well. So were a lot of major companies. Maserati, like Agusta has had many ownership transfers.

Good, I like constructive debate like this. There are many car manufacturer suffering from worldwide sales drop (Even Toyota sold lesser car at 2006 compare with 2005).

Yes, Ford reported total 12.7 billion lost for 2006,
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ford-posts-huge-loss-new/story.aspx?guid=%7B7452E960-737B-4C6E-9AC0-3D3D61AA7887%7D

Nissan does suffer lost at the last year Q4, but that's after 5 straight quarterly profit reported.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2004510,00.html

But 1 name you wrote up there is wrong, you maybe surprise, Mitshubishi start earning money, 73 million Profit in total
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/04/27/mitsubishi-turns-a-profit-for-the-first-time-in-four-years/


You can name any of the car maker, but the matter of fact is, none of them are protected by government law heavily and yet still making losses. And Proton was built on tax payer money, they have the responsibility to answer Malaysian questions.

Managing a car manufacturing company is not like managing a biscuit factory, the public doesnt seem to realise that. Operations research is a multi billion dollar industry, if many people are as capable as they think they are in such management they should be paid tens of thousands a month in salary.

My two cents.




b00n: post is not directed at you btw, just in general.

in today's economic development, managing a biscuit factory and car manufacturing company is working on the same fundamental rules, knock down your competitor and gain bigger market share.

The management still getting their bonus while PROTON is reported lost, are you trying to says that's the way they run the business and make it more competitive? At least many of us don't quite agree with that.

Guess you are trying to says that the management salary is below market price, so they can't perform? Knock the management down and hire someone who can do the job better.
* some comment removed *

 

[davidv00]

err... maybe bringing the issue of races here is inappropriate. yes politics are involved heavily and it has nothing to do with races. (what i meant is eventually all the people involved in proton maybe same race only, we can't put the same hat to everyone in the same race in this country).

again another 2 cents

 

[infernaL]

err... maybe bringing the issue of races here is inappropriate. yes politics are involved heavily and it has nothing to do with races. (what i meant is eventually all the people involved in proton maybe same race only, we can't put the same hat to everyone in the same race in this country).

again another 2 cents

its inseperable since our political parties are race-based by majority ?

 

[davidv00]

well, that depends whether our discussion should include politics AND races or simply politics AND proton ... lolx

 

[acbc]

Sell Proton to Naza and let them rename it. Just like back in the old days of hard drive technology where Quantum used to produce shitty hard drives and was eventually swallowed by Seagate (who makes good hard drives).

So, in this case, without Proton name, people will see something else. The name Proton is like a bad karma scaring away potential investors and customers!

 

[davidv00]

well said acbc, but if only Quantum does not involve political factors (in this case of Proton its not only politics within the company). Quantum shares might be overtaken by market purchases but I don't think this will happen to Proton.

if Proton has the equivalent status as Quantum back on those days, maybe we will have decent and reasonable national cars on the road and no nonsense of RM5xxmil lost.

2 cents on the table.

 

[xin]

i think Proton's name would not dissapear so easily since msia gov already reco it as a national car brand... i guess most is let other makers to absorb Proton and rebadge respective car maker's chasis to Proton...well this would work if the car maker has the decisive power over Proton shares..

 

[davidv00]

i think Proton's name would not dissapear so easily since msia gov already reco it as a national car brand... i guess most is let other makers to absorb Proton and rebadge respective car maker's chasis to Proton...well this would work if the car maker has the decisive power over Proton shares..

that is one thing they (proton & gov) can't let go

 

[xin]

desperate times need desperate measures lol ..wait until they(pro and gov) are depleted over their resources... maybe they gonna have to letgo lol ..

 

[imoloq]

that's what we lack.......QC......
that's why the fell out talk with VW and other makers.......QUALITY CONTROL......

btw, usually my comments are not targeted at any specific person...
so you don't necessary need to quote my comments....
kekeke....cheers!

Why not suggest how to change Proton's image instead of bashing them. We should be proud that we have a national car maker unlike many countries who doesn't...
Than again should we be proud?!......Yes if only they did a good job!

Management style should be changed, rebranding, Quality Control, marketing and business oriented management, stop hiding behind the Government....admit the failure and restart fresh!.....
that's my advice to PROTON!

QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY! That's what everybody's been stressing about! How did the Management at Proton managed to miss this?

I've visited the Proton plant at Shah Alam and they do have acceptable quality control. They even have a shower test to check for leaks. Yet, the Neo's roof still leaks :(

They seriously need to address problems on quality control. Fix that first and then maybe they can consider newer models.

If I were to head the quality control or design department of Proton, I'll overdesign and overbuild those easy-to-fail components so that they will last longer than the car. Even in WWII, bombers that survived a bombing run will be inspected for damage and they will reinforce those areas that WERE NOT HIT by bullets. The rationale behind this: critical areas were not hit, enabling the bombers to return safely. The bombers that didn't return probably took a hit in those critical areas. Even people 60 years ago knew how to design for reliability, why can't Proton!

 

[Zeroed]

Seems like I didnt make my point clear, heh.

Blacksamurai and infernal:

I am in *NO* way saying that Proton is doing well. Infact I even said that they are not, given the protection they had for 20 years. I am in *NO* way defending Proton's current management ability. Personally I myself think that the wrong people are in there doing a poor job as well, and that if they were to survive the future they should just hand everything including the management side and qc to a big brand... which is what many major car companies had done as well.

My post was targeted at the people who bashes Proton at the really fundamental levels. Saying Proton is stupid lah, can go die lah, etc: "Not giving them enough credit."


>in today's economic development, managing a biscuit factory and car manufacturing company is working on the same fundamental rules, knock down your competitor and gain bigger market share.

Yes, in a marketing sense. (But its also a lot easier to market a biscuit brand than a car. We're talking about global companies here, some whos been operating for almost 100 years.)

I was referring to the production side. Proton reporting a loss of 500million and everyone is saying that Proton is stupid, can go die lah... fact is there are so many factors involved in the production of cars alone that a company with operations of this magnitude making a loss is perfectly normal, let alone throwing in factors like competition, marketing and political (as well as protecting saudara-mara) issues.

edit: I am aware that they have been making a loss for sometime, btw. But nonetheless I believe they are trying to turn the tables, and even appointed perodua's ceo sometime ago


Once again: Im not supporting Proton. Im just saying "If you want to bash Proton, atleast make sense with it lah, given the type of operations they conduct. "

Just my opinion ok, Im too lazy to make anymore arguments out of it already.

 

[devious17]

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1039/20070602lkv3.jpg

 

[davidv00]

well regarding the quality segment of problems with proton, here is an insider story, no solid reference on how true is this, but anyhow i leak here just as an example:

the infamous of proton accessories that annoyed all pre or post proton cars owners -- the power window actuator. proton QC management had aware of this QC issue long before our time, they had managed to get another supplier B that supplies better quality actuator but due to some "political" decision within the management level, they insist on vendor A so happened that is low/bad quality goods supplied, despite of higher price than B.

as i mentioned before, decisions makers is playing the games here, depends on which level we are pointing fingers at, of course I could not totally dismiss other aspect like marketing, design, R&D that might not did a very good job.

the end result to the market actually is decisive by the upper management on what to put in the ingredient to final productions no matter how well they done in those test they had done including to get TUV certified and ISO stuff.

2 cents down the table.