Malaysia’s first national electric vehicle has been shown and it’s the Proton e.MAS 7.
Proton today confirmed a few things about the brand’s first electric vehicle. First, its name will be e.MAS 7. Second, it’s based on the Geely Galaxy E5 with co-development done by Proton engineers (citation needed). Thirdly, 29 outlets nationwide have signed up to distribute e.MAS electric vehicles including 2 dealerships in Kota Kinabalu and one in Kuching.
Other things that were confirmed – Proton is developing a ‘Super App’ pertaining to EVs. There’s nothing stopping them from slightly modding and putting a skin over the Hello smart app and that might be the best way to go about it to be honest.
Proton shared that the e.MAS 7 would be sitting on the Global Modular Architecture (GMA), which is essentially the Geely SEA with some modifications. The GMA will be used to roll out two ‘phases’ of products totaling 5 vehicles over an undefined span of time. The e.MAS 7 is the first of these products and is classified as a C-segment SUV with a length of 4615mm and a wheelbase of 2750mm.
The powertrain consists of a front-mounted “12-in-1” electric drive system that weighs just 82.5kg. It has a 90.04% efficiency and an energy density of 1.94 kW/kg. The battery is a Geely-developed “Aegis Short Blade” cell with LiFePo chemistry.
These batteries have an energy density of 192Wh/kg, are safer than standard lithium ion designs thanks to wet process dual separators and have improved durability of 3,500 cycles (1,000,000km of driving). The battery packs are integrated into the chassis with Cell-To-Body construction for better torsional stiffness which enables better packaging a lower centre of gravity.
Proton also talked about Flyme Auto integration. As far as we can tell, this is software developed by Meizu, which is a tech company that Geely acquired.
What Proton Did Not Share
Specifications and pricing was not shared at all. However, we do know what the Galaxy E5 gets, so we can hazard a guess. A front-mounted electric motor with 218PS and 320Nm of torque will get the car from 0-100km/h in under 7 seconds and all the way up to 180km/h. Either a 49+kWh battery with 440km on the CLTC cycle or a 60+kWh battery with 530km on the CLTC cycle can be fitted to the Galaxy E5.
At least the first batch of Proton e.MAS 7 vehicles will be fully imported, which means they won’t be sold below RM100,000. Our bet is that they won’t be that far off that mark and might even try to go below it with a CKD programme before long.
