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DBKL says citizens can remove illegal obstructions to parking bays

You know those pesky people who reserve parking spaces by placing flower pots, rubbish bins and chairs? Well, certain Kuala Lumpur City Hall officers want you to remove those objects and park there, as they said that drivers should be more proactive when dealing with these kinds of obstructions.

According to a report by The Star, DBKL enforcement officers want people to take proactive action when dealing with people who illegally reserve parking bays.

“We don’t know who put the items there so we cannot issue a summons,” said a DBKL officer who did not want to be named.

“But if a member of the public sees such items being used to reserve a bay, the individual can remove them,” said the officer from the Bukit Bintang branch.

If you have concerns as to whether those people who put those objects there will damage your car as retaliation, the officer said not to worry as they “have street cameras in most places, which monitor the areas”.

These comments were made off the back of a recent enforcement op, where officers found out that those using old motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, flower pots, rubbish bins and chairs to reserve space won’t show their faces or admit the objects belong to them. 

The enforcement officers can only take the items away, so it seems that you must take your rights into your own hands if you ever come across this complicated matter.
 

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Over 6,700 cars sold by UMW Toyota in April – 9% year-to-date increase

UMW Toyota Motor sold over 6,700 cars in April 2023 – a modest but welcomed 9% year-to-date (YTD) increase compared to the same period last year.

A total of 6,767 vehicles comprising 6,681 Toyotas and 86 Lexus units were sold last month and despite a slight increase in YTD, UMW Toyota saw a minor 3% decrease in monthly figures compared to April 2022.

Despite this very minor setback, UMW Toyota is still on course in hitting its mid-year target even with the shorter operating month of April due to Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

According to Datuk Ravindran K., UMW Toyota’s President, “We remain confident in our ability to deliver strong year-on-year growth. We have also seen promising response to our new models launched in quarter one of 2023, particularly the All-New Toyota Vios, and we expect this to contribute to our continued growth throughout the year.”

Regarding the Daihatsu DNGA crash test ‘inaccuracies’, UMW Toyota assures everyone that the new 2023 Toyota Vios sold here in Malaysia is still of high quality in terms of standards as well as safety.

“We would like to assure you that the All-New Toyota Vios complies with all safety regulations and there is no compromise to the quality of the vehicle. The safety of our customers and our vehicles are always our top priority,” added Datuk Ravindran.

To further push its efforts in terms of sales and brand representation in the country, UMW Toyota is gassing up on two exciting initiatives – Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival Season 6 and Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup 2023.

Race 2 of the TGR Festival Season 6 will take place from 3-4 June 2023 at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC). If you love some wheel-to-wheel action from the Vios Challenge as well as some top Malaysian celebrities duking it out on the race track, this is one of the events that you should not miss.

As for the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup, the simulator racing challenge also returns for its sixth year with over 1,000 online competitors signing up to get their hands on the total prize money purse of RM90,000. Getting the young blood into racing through ‘video games’ is indeed a worthwhile effort to dig out the next local motorsports talents.

 

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Toyota halts sales and deliveries of the Yaris Ativ in Thailand

Toyota Motor Thailand pulls the Yaris Ativ down from its website, adding more fuel to the fire caused by the recent safety irregularities on new DNGA-based cars.

Word is going on around the web that Toyota Motor Thailand has stopped sales and deliveries of its Yaris Ativ. This is an important bit of news as the Yaris Ativ is basically their version of our Vios.

A little bit of investigation by visiting their website has confirmed this rumour, as the Toyota Yaris Ativ is no longer listed there, with only the regular Yaris being part of their compact vehicle lineup.

According to Japanese Times, Toyota has stopped sales and deliveries of its Yaris Ativ in Thailand after its affiliate Daihatsu rigged part of the door in side-collision safety tests.

This follows a press conference held in Bangkok, where Toyota’s Asian Region CEO, Masahiko Maeda said that the problem may have occurred due to pressure during the development of the Ativ model.

“If development had been carried out under appropriate conditions, this kind of problem would of course not have happened,” Maeda said.

“I think the fact that it still happened, means there was some kind of pressure at the development site,” he said, adding that the vehicle’s relatively large size may have posed a challenge to Daihatsu, which specializes in the production of small cars.

Daihatsu disclosed last month that there were irregularities in some of their safety tests (crash assessments in particular), affecting 88,000 units sold into various markets – Malaysia included. 

They are investigating how part of the door in side-collision safety tests carried out for some 88,000 small cars had been changed for the purpose of side-on crash safety testing.

Toyota said that they are working with the Thai government to resume sales. Perodua and Toyota Malaysia have deflected any claims that their Axia and Vios are unsafe and have continued selling the cars with no recalls intended.

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Three new BYD 3S centres now operational in Klang Valley

Sime Darby Motors has officially launched three new BYD 3S centres in the Klang Valley.

Those who are interested in the BYD EV brand can head to any of these new 3S centres located in Ara Damansara, Glenmarie, and Cheras for everything related to the BYD brand including sales and aftersales that started with the BYD Atto 3.

The one in Ara Damansara alone had an investment of around RM11 million for an area that covers close to 20,000 square feet equipped with the latest facilities and retail concept of the BYD brand identity.

A total of 48 employees support this particular 3S centre which has also been equipped with four service work bays that can cater up to 270 units each month.

The one in Glenmarie under the management of BYD Sisma Auto is even bigger with a capacity to display up to nine cars and a total of 10 service work bays.  As for the one in Cheras under Millenium Autobeyond, it’s roughly the same size with a total of five service work bays.

According to Dato’ Jeffri Salim Davidson, Group CEO of Sime Darby Berhad, “As one of the key players in the automotive industry, the opening of three (3) BYD 3S centre is a testament to our commitment towards spurring more electric vehicle (EV) adoption amongst Malaysians as we strive to provide world-class sales and aftersales services to our BYD customers.”

“We are pleased to have established strong partnerships with our dealer partners – Sisma Auto and Millenium Autobeyond – and we look forward to offering Malaysians innovative and sustainable BYD vehicles and solutions that meet their mobility needs and contribute to a greener future,” added Dato’ Jeffri.

 

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Perodua expects demand for ICE cars to drop steeply starting in 2024, hybrids to follow from 2030, all replaced by BEVs

What does the future bring? ICE vehicle demand to decline in two years’ time?

There was a recent report by Bernama where Proton’s CEO Roslan Abdullah said that they are looking into deploying their electric vehicle by 2025, two years earlier than projected. 

Their plan, which will starts off with vehicles with mild hybrid (MHEV) tech, followed by BEVs and PHEVs, seems to be on course, especially if they debut the smart#1 BEV later on this year, after the recent launch of the Proton X90, which is of course an MHEV vehicle.

Proton is not the only local automotive manufacturer working hard on moving things into the future because Perodua too are pushing hard to bring new energy vehicles (NEV) to the masses.

This was prevalent recently thanks to Perodua’s Electric Motion Online (EMO) concept, which debuted at the recent 2023 Malaysia Autoshow. 

The EMO concept vehicle is probably Perodua’s first show of hands for its BEV plans. However, its CEO Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad reminded everyone that the main target is to achieve “better carbon neutrality”.

Whether that’ll be in the form of more efficient ICE vehicles, a new hybrid or an electric vehicle, Perodua’s CEO just wants to make sure that they work towards carbon neutrality in line with the government and national automotive policy requirements.

Underneath this mission statement is of course Perodua’s study to where they expect sales of ICE vehicles to drop after 2024, and since they expect hybrid vehicles to fill in the gap till 2030, where then BEV vehicles are the only vehicles mainly in demand, these are the parameters that they have to work on.

Perhaps Proton’s findings from their studies are different since they will be selling BEVs starting this year, but it has been said that they will eventually consider BEVs as their core products in the future.

Two different paths for two national auto manufacturers make for one exciting future. Imagine if Hydrogen tech picks up? What will both of them do then?

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Federal government will provide funds for Penang LRT project

The Malaysian federal government will be providing some additional funds for the proposed Penang LRT (Light Rail Transit) project.

According to a report by FMT, our beloved Prime Minister, YAB Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, made this statement in a bid to improve the state’s ongoing traffic congestion issues. The Penang LRT project which is said will be funded by the Penang South Islands (PSI) project will also be scaled down due to rising concerns from some of the locals.

As part of the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP), the federal government will meet up with the state government to finalise the funding matters which has been an issue that was not allegedly funded enough. Even with two bridges, the issue of congestion is still an unresolved matter and Putrajaya will be lending a helping hand in a bigger way this time around.

According to PMX, “In a week or two, we will meet up with the state government to set up the scheme as it involves a large amount of loans that require the involvement of the federal government.”

Additionally, it was also reported that Putrajaya will fully undertake the Penang LRT project as mentioned by our current Transport Minister, Anthony Loke Siew Fook.

As for the scaling down aspect of the PSI project, the federal government has looked into concerns of the some of the Penang locals and fishermen as it involves the reclamation of three islands between Permatang Damar Laut and Gertak Sanggul. Putrajaya will be looking into the reduction of scope in terms of area coverage as well as the initial estimated project figure of RM10 billion.

With the federal government finally lending a bigger hand in this particular matter, will it finally solve the congestion issues on the Penang island? We sure hope so, we love our food travels to the North and it would be a much more pleasant experience if we didn’t have to sit through hours of traffic.

 

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A closer look at the Haval H6 and Haval Jolion coming to Malaysia

GWM has confirmed that the Haval H6 HEV and Jolion HEV are part of their plan for Malaysia, so what are they like? We got a taster at the recent 2023 Malaysia Autoshow.

At the recent 2023 Malaysia Autoshow, Great Wall Motor (GWM) had one of the most prominent booths out of all the manufacturers that were there that weekend.

Although one of the most displayed cars at their booth was the Ora Good Cat electric vehicle, the vehicles that actually stole the show were the Haval H6 HEV and Haval Jolion HEV.

Here’s a quick brief if you still need to familiarize yourself with GWM and how Haval is linked to them.

Great Wall Motor (GWM) is a Chinese automobile manufacturer with several brands, including Haval. Haval is a brand of SUVs produced by GWM and was launched in 2013.

In other words, Haval is a sub-brand of Great Wall Motor and operates under its umbrella. Haval specializes in producing value-for-money SUVs that are designed to compete with other major automakers in the global market.

Over the years, Haval internationally has become one of GWM’s most successful brands, with a reputation for producing reliable, high-quality SUVs that offer excellent value for money.

Although they have been previously received in Malaysia as a company that offers budget and unattractive SUVs, this might all change soon when Haval introduces the H6 and Jolion in Malaysia. 

We only need to look at our border neighbours to see how they have been received there. Haval has been making waves for itself in the Thai market, and both the H6 and Jolion have been well-received by Thai consumers and automotive media outlets alike. 

In fact, the Haval H6 even managed to outsell the Honda CR-V for a few months in a row, and although that’s not such a big feat because that was the old CR-V, it still tells you a story of how it has been accepted.

Anyway, we’re here to take a quick closer look at the Haval H6 and Jolion because from what we saw at the Autoshow, they have all the potential to be your next SUV.

Haval H6 HEV

The Malaysian offering schedule should be roughly comparable to that of Thailands, where all H6 units are sold as a series (non-plug-in) hybrid that pairs a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine and electric motor for maximum power and torque figures of 243PS and 530Nm.

The interior has a stylish design and all the mod cons for modern needs, such as Apple Car Play and Android Auto, but the materials used for some parts of the interior are not plush but instead hardy, where it will stand the test of time. 

The interior is not as plush as the Proton X70 or Chery Omoda, but the other two Chinese-based SUVs do not have such a mighty powertrain as the H6 HEV. So you win some, lose some.

Haval Jolion HEV

Just like the Haval H6 HEV, the interior of the Jolion is stylish, and there are all the mod cons you will ever need. Digital meter cluster, large infotainment screen, rear air conditioning vents – you name it, it’s got it. Yes, the materials used and placed are designed for longevity, so don’t expect perishable soft-touch materials.

Once again, one of the best features of the Jolion is its powertrain grunt because when its 1.5-litre turbocharged engine works together with the electric traction motor, it has an overall output of 375Nm. 

Both SUVs also return good fuel consumption, with the Jolion’s coming at a quoted 5.1l/100km and the Haval H6 HEV coming in at 6-7l/100km.

As for safety, they both have a long list of innovative safety technologies, including the all-important autonomous emergency braking and something called Intelligent Dodge, where apparently when activated, the system will control the vehicle to ensure that a safe distance is kept when overtaking large vehicles. 

Once the vehicle has moved past the truck or long vehicle, it will move back to its correct position between the lane lines.

Will they be a better offering than the Proton SUVs is hard to say because they will probably be CBU SUVs, so we’ll have to wait and see what their prices are like to give a final conclusion. 

They are good-looking SUVs with a lot of grunt and practicality, so it all boils down to price, which usually dictates everything.

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Proton X90 receives 5-star ASEAN NCAP rating for the STANDARD variant

The new 2023 Proton X90 that was recently launched has received a five-star ASEAN NCAP rating and that’s indeed something to shout about.

Apart from announcing the official prices for the Proton X90 (RM123,800-RM152,800, OTR excluding insurance), Proton also announced that they’ve improved its parts supply concerns as well as its first mild-hybrid SUV getting a five-star safety rating from ASEAN NCAP (New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries).

The Standard variant of the 2023 Proton X90 was sent in for the ASEAN NCAP assessment where it received an overall score of 83.75. A five-star rating right now is even more crucial considering the fact that it is now more stringent thanks to the updated 2021-2025 assessment protocols which a couple of new additions – the Safety Assist and Motorcyclist Safety on top of the Adult Occupant Protection and Child Occupant Protection.

The breakdown of the five-star ASEAN NCAP rating for the 2023 Proton X90 SUV is as follows:

Adult Occupant Protection (AOP) – 30.2 out of 32 (37.75% out of 40%)
Child Occupant Protection (COP) – 45.37 out of 51 (17.79% out of 20%)
Safety Assist – 16.5 out of 21 (15.71% out of 20%)
Motorcyclist Safety (MS) – 10 out of 16 (12.5% out of 20%)

All variants of the Proton X90 get the same six airbags setup which includes the driver, front passenger, two for sides, and two more for the curtains. While this is already an impressive figure for the base Proton X90 model, the Premium and Flagship variants should be rated even higher considering the fact that they come standard with safety features like Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Lane Departure Warning, (LDW), Intelligent High Beam Control (IHBC), plus more.

To know more about what the 2023 Proton X90 has to offer, particularly the Premium and Flagship variants, check out our walkaround video, below!

 

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Proton X90 parts supply enough to cover aftersales

In conjunction with the launch of the new 2023 Proton X90, Proton also announced that they’ve worked on improving its parts supply issues in the aftersales division.

This announcement was made by Proton’s deputy CEO himself, Roslan Abdullah, prior to the price announcement of the brand’s first-ever NEV (New Energy Vehicle) model offering in the form of the three-row mild-hybrid SUV. In case you missed out on the prices, the 2023 Proton X90 is available from RM123,800 to RM152,800 (OTR excluding insurance).

The timing was indeed a weird one to make the announcement, but Proton wanted to assure all of its current as well as future customers that they’re indeed aware of the situation and are currently working to improve them on all aspects, including aftersales services and parts availability.

This includes the newly-launched Proton X90 SUV, which is Proton’s first-ever mild-hybrid production model. With the production line kicking things off in the past couple of months at their manufacturing plant in Tanjung Malim, Proton assures all future owners that there won’t be any issues regarding the supply of parts should there be a need for one (or more).

Proton also mentioned that they’ve already strengthened their efforts regarding parts supply in East Malaysia with the launch of the Proton Regional Parts Centre in Kuching back in February. This facility offers a reduction in parts lead time by up to 30%. In other words, less waiting period if there’s ever a need to replace any parts for your beloved Proton model.

Going back to the Proton X90, there are four different variants to choose from – Standard, Executive, Premium, and the range-topping Flagship. While we initially thought the prices were headed towards a more ‘premium’ range, Proton indeed surprised everyone when they announced that the Proton X90 will be available from as low as RM123k. If you know your stuff, that’s a very competitive price range.

 

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TEST The 2023 Proton X90 will come in FOUR variants – 1.5TGDi BSG engine, six & seven-seater models

More details of the 2023 Proton X90 were revealed earlier today during a media preview – and yes, we can finally confirm that Proton’s upcoming D-segment SUV will be called the X90.

Moving to a more premium segment, the Proton X90 will come in four different variants – Standard, Executive, Premium, and of course, Flagship. All of them will be fitted with the same 1.5TGDi BSG mild-hybrid powertrain that produces 190PS and 300Nm of torque.

Compared to the 1.5TGDi engine found in the Proton X50, the addition of the Belt Start Generator or BSG in the Proton X90 (basically a 48V electric motor) will not only offer more power and torque but also an increase in fuel efficiency by 15%.

Speaking of variants, the 2023 Proton X90 will come in two different seating configurations – seven seats for the Standard, Executive, and Premium variants followed by a more ‘premium’ six-seat configuration for the range-topping Flagship model.

As for design, the ‘evolution’ found in the Proton X90 offers the new ‘Sensual Prestige’ exterior design which offers more premium-ness from the brand. This is highly portrayed via its new front grille that features jewel-like diamond shapes inspired by songket patterns to match with the X90’s new ‘Ethereal Bow’.

As for the ‘Infinite Weave’ grille design, you can still see its essence as part of the background for this new and more premium-looking grille. Not a bad party piece that’s flanked with a set of full LED headlamps and sequential turn signals.

The side profile offers a more muscular yet dynamic profile that emphasises a lot on width and stability apart from just looking like the biggest Proton X model yet.

Riding on a set of 19-inch wheels with a dual five-spoke design, the X90 has indeed been given the premium touch compared to the X70 and X50 models. Hiding behind those is the X90’s multi-link suspension setup.

As for the interior, this premium design DNA has not been left behind thanks to its ‘Inner Haven’ and ‘Appointed Luxury’ interior philosophies. Proton has included its biggest 12.3-inch LCD infotainment head unit (1920×720 HD resolution) together with a dominant centre console.

Other highlights include:

Comfort seats with electric adjustment (Nappa leather AND ventilation)
Expandable boot space up to 2,050 litres
Dual-zone AC with independent rear unit
All-row air vents
G-Clean N95 cabin filter
Interior ambient lighting
Nearby Auto Unlock & Walk-Away Auto Lock
Hands-free tailgate operation + more

Proton also mentioned that the X90’s safety features have been enhanced with three new additions to its Advanced Driver Assistance System or ADAS. These three new features are Rear Collision Waring, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, and Traffic Sign Information.

We’re expecting the all-new 2023 Proton X90 D-segment SUV to be launched sometime in May to commemorate the brand’s 40th anniversary. More details will follow suit, particularly the price, availability, and even which dealer will be selling this new Proton model.

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