Blame gov't, not Proton, for high car prices: Dr M

Proton chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad believes the national carmaker should not be blamed for the high price of cars.

The former prime minister said Proton is not to be blamed for the problem as car prices are high due to the government wanting to collect taxes from motorists.

“For example, if you buy a Mercedes-(Benz), it has nothing to do with Proton. The government imposes almost 300 percent tax on big cars,” Mahathir pointed out at a press conference at the Proton Centre of Excellence in Shah Alam today.

Mahathir said this was done to discourage the buying of "big cars" and also because the government wanted to collect revenue.

“So we are not the cause for the price of cars being high, but also because we cannot compete with giants.

“If you have a football team consisting of 12-year-olds and ask them to play with Manchester United or Liverpool, you know the result. So that is what we are up against,” he said.

Mahathir also lamented how there was no proper allocation for Proton to produce electric cars.

“There is no government support for us. We were supposed to receive money for design (as well as) research and development, (but) we didn’t receive.

“Yet we spent our own money to produce hybrid, electric cars. We need money to produce electric cars because this is our promise to the government,” he said.

Mahathir further stressed that what Proton needed was not support but encouragement.

“Our electric car is an ordinary car with an electric engine. It does 313km per charge, which is not achieved by other electric cars. But we get no encouragement.

“We need some, not support, but encouragement to do this,” he said.

TV3's anti-Proton campaign poser

The country’s longest serving prime minister also bemoaned the type of treatment Proton had allegedly received as of late.

“There is almost like a campaign being carried out for Malaysians not to buy Proton.

“It’s very clear, in certain media, they are telling people ‘Don’t buy Proton’,” he claimed in an apparent reference to TV3.

Ever since he became increasingly critical of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, state-owned TV3 had allegedly resorted to attacking him via a series of reports running down Proton.

The series of reports on TV3 quoted various taxi associations and taxi drivers who had complained about the bad build quality of Proton cars.

TV3, however, has denied that its reports have anything to do with the Najib-Mahathir feud and said it was merely highlighting genuine complaints from taxi drivers. -Mkini