6. Electric Cars by Proton
by Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi drove an electric Proton Persona to the Merdeka parade on Sunday and if all goes according to plan, we may be joining him by 2010.
Dutch-based Detroit Electric (DE) has fitted not just that white Persona, but a Proton Savvy and a Lotus Elise in preliminary testing with Proton — who also own sports car icon Lotus — with a view to signing a manufacturing agreement for production by the end of 2009.
"Proton is one of three vehicle manufacturers we are in discussions with to use its vehicle platforms and manufacture," said DE chairman and CEO Albert Lam, adding that the other two are based in Europe and the US but only Proton has so far made public its involvement due to government backing.
While it is far from a done deal, it is yet another foray into green motoring on the back of Budget 2009's concessions for diesel and hybrid vehicles.
On the choice of Proton, Lam said that it was because "the Abdullah leadership is serious about making Malaysia a green hub" and stated that if given the go-ahead, DE would be investing about US$300 million (RM1.02 billion) over the first five years.
This amount is due to the fact that the company does not simply seek to sell its technology but to market its own product with joint ventures or manufacturing agreements with existing carmakers. "We are not an Intel, we are Dell," Lam said, using the IT brands as an analogy.
Lam claims that fuel savings would overtake the higher initial outlay for an electric car. Lam's estimate was that within the current tax structure, an electric Persona would cost about RM80,000, roughly RM20,000 more than the 1.6-litre petrol model but he was confident that the government would offer tax concessions to encourage the new technology and also claimed that fuel costs for the Persona would be brought down to 3 sen/km from 35sen/km based on current electricity tariffs and petrol prices.
During the press conference held at Proton's production factory and test track here, it was revealed that the national carmaker had been tasked to explore the possibility of collaboration with DE which, in the best-case scenario, would result in both Proton-branded electric cars and DE's own models running parallel with Proton holding rights to an Asean market.
This would be a similar scenario to other platform-sharing ventures such as Proton's own Mitsubishi-based Wira, Satria and Perdana or Porsche and Volkswagen's shared SUV platform for the Cayenne and Touareg respectively.
Lam also said it was possible that an agreement could be reached with all three manufacturers but that the target was to have one sub-compact (e.g. Savvy), one compact (Persona) and one sports car (Elise) model ready by the time the brand hits the market with a global target of 25,000 units in the first year of production.
One of the main obstacles however, will be infrastructure, as the stated range of the cars on a full charge is 300km. While intra-city use can be covered by overnight charges at home, the cars will not be able to cover the distance from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, for example, on a single charge. The requirement for charging stations as opposed to fuelling stations would require a large capital investment.
Lam, however, said that this was true of all new technologies where a chicken and egg scenario would arise — without the product why would there be infrastructure and vice versa.
"Early adopters, even of handphones and computers, had to face some inconveniences," he said.
Electric cars are not a new idea and DE itself is a 101-year-old brand. However, there were soon overtaken by petrol engines but the current landscape of dwindling fossil fuel reserves and global warming is causing a concerted shift towards alternative fuels with electric cars facing problems of practicality rather than technology.
Battery technology has been a main obstacle and even now DE engineers say electric cars weigh about 200kg more than a 1,000kg petrol-driven equivalent and the battery costs make up typically 30 per cent of the cost of the car.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi drove an electric Proton Persona to the Merdeka parade on Sunday and if all goes according to plan, we may be joining him by 2010.
Dutch-based Detroit Electric (DE) has fitted not just that white Persona, but a Proton Savvy and a Lotus Elise in preliminary testing with Proton — who also own sports car icon Lotus — with a view to signing a manufacturing agreement for production by the end of 2009.
"Proton is one of three vehicle manufacturers we are in discussions with to use its vehicle platforms and manufacture," said DE chairman and CEO Albert Lam, adding that the other two are based in Europe and the US but only Proton has so far made public its involvement due to government backing.
While it is far from a done deal, it is yet another foray into green motoring on the back of Budget 2009's concessions for diesel and hybrid vehicles.
On the choice of Proton, Lam said that it was because "the Abdullah leadership is serious about making Malaysia a green hub" and stated that if given the go-ahead, DE would be investing about US$300 million (RM1.02 billion) over the first five years.
This amount is due to the fact that the company does not simply seek to sell its technology but to market its own product with joint ventures or manufacturing agreements with existing carmakers. "We are not an Intel, we are Dell," Lam said, using the IT brands as an analogy.
Lam claims that fuel savings would overtake the higher initial outlay for an electric car. Lam's estimate was that within the current tax structure, an electric Persona would cost about RM80,000, roughly RM20,000 more than the 1.6-litre petrol model but he was confident that the government would offer tax concessions to encourage the new technology and also claimed that fuel costs for the Persona would be brought down to 3 sen/km from 35sen/km based on current electricity tariffs and petrol prices.
During the press conference held at Proton's production factory and test track here, it was revealed that the national carmaker had been tasked to explore the possibility of collaboration with DE which, in the best-case scenario, would result in both Proton-branded electric cars and DE's own models running parallel with Proton holding rights to an Asean market.
This would be a similar scenario to other platform-sharing ventures such as Proton's own Mitsubishi-based Wira, Satria and Perdana or Porsche and Volkswagen's shared SUV platform for the Cayenne and Touareg respectively.
Lam also said it was possible that an agreement could be reached with all three manufacturers but that the target was to have one sub-compact (e.g. Savvy), one compact (Persona) and one sports car (Elise) model ready by the time the brand hits the market with a global target of 25,000 units in the first year of production.
One of the main obstacles however, will be infrastructure, as the stated range of the cars on a full charge is 300km. While intra-city use can be covered by overnight charges at home, the cars will not be able to cover the distance from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, for example, on a single charge. The requirement for charging stations as opposed to fuelling stations would require a large capital investment.
Lam, however, said that this was true of all new technologies where a chicken and egg scenario would arise — without the product why would there be infrastructure and vice versa.
"Early adopters, even of handphones and computers, had to face some inconveniences," he said.
Electric cars are not a new idea and DE itself is a 101-year-old brand. However, there were soon overtaken by petrol engines but the current landscape of dwindling fossil fuel reserves and global warming is causing a concerted shift towards alternative fuels with electric cars facing problems of practicality rather than technology.
Battery technology has been a main obstacle and even now DE engineers say electric cars weigh about 200kg more than a 1,000kg petrol-driven equivalent and the battery costs make up typically 30 per cent of the cost of the car.
