Proton's first self-designed engines to go into cars
Proton's first self-designed engines to go into cars
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Kuala Lumpur
The Campro engine designed in-house by a unit of Malaysia's national automaker Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional (Proton) are expected to be in Proton cars by March 2003, reports said recently.
The engine, which has variable valve technology developed by Proton's 80 percent United Kingdom subsidiary Lotus Group, had been fully tested, said Proton Chief Executive Mahaleel Ariff, according to the New Straits Times daily.
Proton was now studying how best to mass-produce the engine at its new engine-casting plant in Shah Alam, 25 kilometers outside Kuala Lumpur, Mahaleel said.
Denying that the project to produce the engine called the Campro had floundered, Mahaleel said that the project was, in fact, ahead of the scheduled production date of 2005.
Malaysia must gradually free its auto market to imports from Jan. 1, 2005, after delaying for two years the opening of the market under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Free Trade Area (AFTA) pact, and Proton has been racing ahead of this deadline.
The Campro engine was more powerful, economical and cheaper to maintain than any other engine Proton cars currently used, Mahaleel added. He attributed this to Proton's engine management electronics and Lotus' patented Cam Profile Switching technology. Benchmarked against the 1.8-liter engine of Germany's BMW, the new Campro engine family with a four-cylinder engine ranging from 1.3 liters to 1.8 liters would power all future Proton models, Mahaleel said.
Currently, Proton uses engines from foreign automakers such as Mitsubishi and Citroen to power its cars, which together with those from second national automaker Perodua, make up about 90 percent of new cars sold in Malaysia.
"We will be able to compete with them (foreign cars) price- wise and have the added advantage of the Lotus brand name," Mahaleel said of the Campro engine. Lotus last week won the U.K. Queen's Enterprise Award 2002.
The Campro would trim 20 percent off the cost of making new Proton cars and save the company about a billion ringgit (US$380 million) over five years, he added.
Taking just nine months from the drawing board to the first working prototype, the Campro had also beaten the industry average of 12 months for conception to development, Mahaleel said.
Eager to promote the Campro, Mahaleel said the 1.6-liter variant of the engine had been found to have power output equivalent to some 1.8-liter engines.
Proton was also working on developing a common chassis with Lotus to bring production costs down. Lotus, which is well-known for its high-end sports cars such as Espirit and Elise, became part of Proton in 1996.
The Campro engine and future cooperative efforts with Lotus on chassis development meant that Proton was not open to the idea of using an externally-developed engine, such as the one made by another Malaysian auto joint-venture, Sauber-Petronas, Mahaleel said.
"The reason is purely economics. If we use that engine, we will be set back in both time and cost. It will cost 100 million ringgit just to prepare the engine for mass production and it will take time," he said.
With the Campro, Proton would be able to lower the price-tag for its cars even as AFTA brings the threat of cheaper foreign models, the report said.
The Campro was also compliant with the Euro 4 fuel emission standards of the European Union, Proton said.
In addition, the Campro can accommodate future innovations including alternative fuels and electric valve technology with minimum modifications, said David Robinson, head of Campro development team at Lotus.