Dr Mahathir said “This is Proton’s 25th year and we want to tell the world that Proton is now ready to be a global player. Proton is willing to invest in strategic partnerships to drive this new direction for the company. I’ve told the Proton people that I’d like to see the car out in a year, but they say they need more time,”
The put on display 3 variants of the Emas at Geneva which are the Comfort version which is a 5 door, 4 seater hatchback saloon car with a hybrid drivetrain. The Country is a 3 door, 5 seater hybrid drivetrain hatchback saloon while the Emas3 City is a hatchback saloon, 3 door, 3+1 seater with plug-in electric drive system. All the variants were developed by the Proton owned Lotus Engineering which comes with a 1.2 liter engine running on petrol, ethanol or methanol and its electric motor powered up from its lithium ion batteries.
Set to start production in 2012, Dr Mahathir added that this would be giant technological leap for the company who in the past have been fully focused in producing cars for the Malaysian market. The car was designed with Italdesign Giugiaro, a renowned Italian design house and its name ‘Emas’ is actually short for Eco Mobility Advance Solution. Fabrizio Giugiaro, the co-chairman of the design house said “This is a car for today, with a design for tomorrow. We don’t want to call it a concept car, rather, this is a new concept for a car,”
Its chairman, Giorgetto Giugiaro said “We have created a family of models in different configurations but all offering the passenger room of a medium-category car while maintaining the exterior dimensions of a compact mini. The architecture has been designed in such a way as to allow us to outfit an infinite number of variants without compromising the car's great comfort and extensive interior space”
Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir, the managing director of Proton Group said that to get the car into production, it would take between 17 and 24 months. He said “We are thankful and humbled that this is happening as we celebrate our 25th anniversary. We will certainly use this opportunity to reach out and build our brand further in the global market,” Surely this would be a huge step forward for Proton as they seek to establish its brand across the globe.
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