Will the Proton e.MAS 7 Prime become e-waste when every customer springs for the Premium model?
Back Story: Wanting To START pricing At RM120,000
Back in October 2024, Proton opened the order books for their first ever electric vehicle, the e.MAS 7. The initial presentation of the car mentioned the same two battery options that made the final cut – a 60.22kWh battery with a usable 410km of range and a 49.52kWh battery with just 345km of range. It had an estimated pricing of RM120,000, which led many to assume that Proton wanted the base model to be priced at RM120,000 in order to sell the high spec model for much higher.
Later slides confirmed this as Proton themselves wanted to prove that even if the base model was priced at RM120,000, their mark up would not have been as egregious as BYD’s initial mark up for the Atto 3 models. That being said, I think they themselves may have realised how bad a 79% increase would have looked on Malaysia’s first national electric car, especially compared to the Atto 3’s current mark up of 76%.
Reality Check: Geely Enters Thailand With A Lower Priced Product
It’s no secret that Proton has been laying the groundwork for its own ‘new energy’ sales and distributorship network via its fully-owned subsidiary Proton New Energy Technology Sdn. Bhd. (PRO-NET). PRO-NET got the distributorship rights of smart (partially Geely-owned) vehicles for Malaysia AND Thailand. Later on, it was PRO-NET that was carrying out all e.MAS 7 related marketing activities and not every Proton dealership would be allowed to sell e.MAS EVs. It was reasonable to assume that PRO-NET would be ‘receiving’ the distributorship rights in Thailand for the e.MAS 7 too.
However, Geely pulled the rug from under everyone’s feet by launching the Galaxy EX5 in Thailand. It’s essentially the same car that’s sold in China as the Galaxy E5. I won’t get into the politics of this move, but it did generate quite a stir in social media. What’s important to note was the pricing and specification offered in Thailand versus Malaysia.
In the Thai market, the EX5 Pro would be sold for between RM116,200 to RM127,900. The first 1,084 units would received promotional pricing of RM111,100 and RM122,700. Prices are converted from Thai Baht at the time of launch. This was a bit of a reality check for Proton as pricing higher than this would be bad for optics. They had made a big deal of the e.MAS 7 being a collaboration between Geely and Proton, so if their pricing was substantially higher than Geely’s in Thailand it would look like they were purposefully price gauging or too inefficient a company to price the car competitively while maintaining a decent profit.
Launch Day: Good Pricing, But What’s With The Specs?
Most of the motoring media can agree that ultimately the Proton e.MAS 7’s pricing is fair, but not mind-blowing. The base e.MAS 7 Prime goes for RM109,800 while the Premium goes for RM123,800. Just like the Thai market, there is promotional pricing here too RM105,800 and RM119,800 for the first 3,000 units – a smaller discount per unit, but more units overall. Proton is offering more than double, or RM12,000,000 in early bird discounts (RM4,000 X 3,000 units) for the e.MAS 7 versus around RM5,582,600 in discounts (RM5,150 avg X 1,084 units). This doesn’t include the additional value-added items Proton are throwing in for the e.MAS 7.
However, the real issue comes down to specification. The e.MAS 7 and its Geely Galaxy twins feature some very impressive home-grown Geely technology. These make the BYD Atto 3 look a little out of date. Read about it here. It’s also quite impressive that Proton got access to this new battery technology and a new generation Geely EV product within months of its availability in China.
The issue is that the e.MAS 7 Prime base model comes with the smaller 49.52kWh battery with just 345km of range. Filtering Chinese imported EVs that cost more than RM109,800 with shorter ranges, we get:
- Ora Good Cat 400 Pro
- MG ZS
- Neta X (both variants)
Can excuses or reasons be found for these three EVs being such poor value? Sure. Let’s try.
The Ora Good Cat gets ‘pioneer’ status, being the first Chinese EV to launch in Malaysia. It had no reference point at the time and has since lowered its price but is still poor value (RM114,500 for 310km on the WLTP cycle).
There is no excuse for the MG ZS’ existing in Malaysia at that price. I don’t think it should have been launched here. However I don’t blame SAIC Motor Malaysia as the MG4 more than makes up for the ZS. It frequently tops the list in terms of Ringgit per KM of range and the base model MG 4 offers 5km more range than the e.MAS 7 while costing less prior to any discount.
The Neta X… I don’t know what to say about this car. It costs less than half as much in China and the mark up for the Malaysian market is absurd. I haven’t driven the car, so I shouldn’t condemn it. But the pricing and value proposition speaks for itself.
So, back to the Proton e.MAS 7 Prime. The price difference between the Prime and Premium is just RM14,000 more (13% increase) and here’s what you get:
- 65km more range (19% increase)
- 19″ rims (vs 18″)
- panoramic roof with sunshade
- powered tailgate
- active grille shutter
- auto dimming rear view mirror
- front passenger 4-way powered adjustment
- front ventilated seats
- fully recline-able front seats
- 256-colour ambient lighting
- heads-up display
- 16-speaker Flyme audio sound system
Just the range increase ALONE would justify any potential PRIME shopper to upgrade to the PREMIUM model. Some may argue that an RM14,000 difference may be large for buyers shopping in this category. We would argue that price sensitive buyers aren’t best served by electric vehicles.
Proton must know this by now and it feels like the PRIME was only specified in order to hit that lower starting price number. Even if no one buys this variant, the materials and energy required to make the car still has to be expended. EVs need to be driven a certain number of kilometers (100,000km 120,000km is a reasonable estimate) before they recoup the carbon cost of their production and our worry is that the PRIME model will be manufactured and not sold and not used enough to recoup that carbon cost. The Thai market may have a more expensive base model but at least the range of the base model is usable. We’ll check back with Proton on the sales performance of the e.MAS 7 PRIME in a few months to see if this theory holds water.
