MALAYSIA's first electric vehicle, the Proton e.MAS 7, will serve as the official car for the country's Asean chairmanship next year, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said this in his speech at the launch of Proton e.MAS 7 today as reported by the New Straits Times.
Earlier, Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Sdn Bhd (Proton) Holdings Bhd chairman Syed Faisal Albar said the most important feature of e.MAS 7 is it's a fully green vehicle with zero carbon emission, contributing to the nation's net-zero commitment.
"We already have the feature of voice command where it will obey instructions. We are challenging ourselves and now we will do a Bahasa Malaysia version of the voice command," he said at the launch in Kuala Lumpur.
To equip the company for its EV journey, he said Proton opened a new research and development (R&D) centre in Hangzhou Bay in China back in April.
It has a total of 60 local engineers responsible for the Proton's e.MAS range in the future, including the e.MAS 7.
"The global auto sales reached 82 million cars last year and one-third of them were in China alone," he said.
Geely Auto Group chief executive officer Jerry Gan said the e.MAS 7 is a testament to the depth of collaboration between Proton and Geely.
Over 700,000 man-hours of R&D were invested, with over 100,000 kilometres of localised vehicle durability testing conducted," he added. - December 16, 2024
