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Last year could have been considered a ‘setting up’ year for Dinamikjaya Motors Sdn Bhd, the subsidiary of Bermaz Auto (BAuto) handling the Kia brand. With BAuto having suddenly gained two additional brands in such a short space of time, it need to organize the sales and aftersales network first.

Kia already had its 5-year plan ready to roll, with 4 new models to be assembled locally. The first one was the Carnival, which arrived as planned last year (a hybrid version is planned for 2024) and now comes the second one – the Sorento SUV – which was originally planned to appear in 2022 as well.

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Bermaz Auto Alliance Sdn Bhd (BAASB) will soon be adding another model to its Peugeot range and this one will surprise many people: it’s a pick-up truck. Although the French carmaker has been making motor vehicles for over 100 years, pick-up trucks have never featured strongly in its range of products, even though the vehicles have been around almost as long as the passenger car.

This will be the first market in the Asia Pacific region to have the Peugeot truck, which has the name of Landtrek. However, the truck already exists in Asia – except that it is not sold as a Peugeot product but as the Kaicene F70 from Changan Automobile which jointly developed the model with Peugeot.

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For Karamjit Singh, age is just a number and at 60, he still has ‘The Right Stuff’ to not only compete in rallies but also become a champion. The younger generation may have physical agility and perhaps even more bravery but this uncle has experience in the sport that goes back over 35 years – before some of them were even born!

Driving a Proton Gen2, Karamjit and co-driver Jagdev Singh were today crowned champions of the 2022 VANTAGE Malaysian National Rally Championship (MNRC). ‘The Flying Sikh’ shows that his age is no barrier (nor is the age of his rallycar which is 15 years old) and has been recognized as Asia’s most successful rally driver.

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Michael Andretti may be having challenges getting a team, with Cadillac as partner, into Formula 1, but where Formula E is concerned, the Andretti team was readily accepted and has remained a consistent participant since the first season. And this year, as the Avalanche Andretti Formula E team, it has taken the first victory of the new Season 9 in Mexico City this weekend.

Driver Jake Dennis had a dominant drive to win the Hankook Mexico City E-Prix ahead of TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver Pascal Wehrlein who started from sixth to finish second, and Mahindra Racing’s Lucas di Grassi who slipped from pole position during the race to finish third.

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Toyota, like some of the other top carmakers, has expressed a view that the goal of carbon neutrality to prevent climate change is not a single-solution – going electric with motor vehicles – approach. While they do recognise the importance of moving towards that goal, they feel that the electric-only solution is not practical and is also costly. A choice of solutions that include some existing technologies (improved, of course) is being promoted as a more realistic approach.

Toyota’s President, Akio Toyoda, is very vocal about this and was among the first car company CEOs to state the position. Perhaps that encouraged the CEOs in the other companies to also echo similar views but still committing to increasing production of zero emissions battery electric vehicles (BEVs). They are probably under a lot of pressure to allocate massive funding for BEV R&D and at the same time, they still need to continue some development of combustion engine powertrains.

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The first major festival of 2023 – Chinese New Year – is coming and as with other festivals, the roads will be filled with more traffic. In fact, it’s already started in the cities as many people grumble about the increased volume lately, making it longer getting around.

In the days just before Chinese New Year, which falls on January 20, the highways are going to start to see more traffic and PLUS estimates that the volume could reach 2 million vehicles on its highway network on the peak days. That’s 20% higher than the number on normal days, so be prepared for journeys to take longer and the R&R places to be more crowded.

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