Enthusiasts have been increasingly lamenting the greenification of our cars and roads. Many are worried that the rise of electric vehicles, and the concern of emissions over everything else, will wipe out the joys of a sonorous engine. The manual gearbox? Don't even mention it. Toyota's engineers are confident that won't be the case. "We think sound is essential. We are developing the hydrogen engine to preserve the fun-to-drive engine, and the sound for the future," says Keisuke Fujikura, a mem

No, we did not make a boo-boo with our title – the Proton X70 and the model it is derived from, the Geely Boyue, has its roots traces to the Toyota RAV4. Do note that the RAV4 mentioned here is not the current-generation, TNGA-based model, but an older generation model. This is according to a book titled Geely Drives Out (by Hua Wang, Giovanni Balcet, Wenxian Zhang), which is an academic review of Geely’s business and was published with support by Geely. The book mentioned, “The NL platform for

We’re all familiar with Geely SUVs. Other than the two models sold here as the Proton X50 and the Proton X70, Malaysians also have their eye on the Xingyue, Xingyue L, and the Haoyue because everybody hopes that these models would make it to our shores one day. But did you know that Geely has 5 other SUVs on sale as well? To make it clearer, Geely has separated their vehicle range to the Yue/Rui series (Yue for SUVs/ Rui for sedans), Emgrand series, and the Vision series. The Yue/Rui series is m

Proton is aiming to sell 4,000 units of its B-segment Proton X50 for 2020. The vehicle is yet to be launched and but bookings are now opened. The target set is rather conservative. Assuming that the model is launched in October, that gives Proton about 3 months to meet its 4,000 units target, which translates into an average monthly sales of around 1,330 units. For comparison, sales of the Proton X70 (locally-assembled CKD model) averaged around 1,800 units/month, with 12,732 units delivered as

The Nissan Rogue, as the Nissan X-Trail is known as in the US, will be making its global debut on Monday June 15. More details to follow when the all-new 2021 Nissan X-Trail is revealed next week. Although Nissan has yet to reveal the full car, we can make a good guess on how the next generation X-Trail will look like based on patent documents submitted. This all-new Nissan X-Trail could also point to the next generation Mitsubishi Outlander, which is likely to share the same underpinnings as th

The Proton X70 Premium 2WD sold in Malaysia is powered by a 1.8-litre turbocharged direct-injection 4-cylinder petrol engine linked to a 6-speed automatic transmission. The engine pushes out 184 PS and 285 Nm of torque. This Premium variant is front-wheel drive only. Although it has the worst power-to-weight ratio among other SUVs in the same class and output, the X70 does not feel underpowered to drive. In a straight line, the X70 goes from 0 to 100 km/h in 10.1 seconds, which is decent for a f