If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

Now that we are a family of six, we officially needed a mini van. We searched high and low for vehicles that would fit our needs and the decided on the lovely Proton Exora that I am pictured with. We would like to say that we purchased this car to support a Malaysia owned company. However, we own a Proton simply because it was much cheaper than its competitors.

Proton is a Malaysian car manufacturer with nearly half of its equity owned by a government owned company. The government has kept the Proton's price low by taxing the competition. In 1988, Proton had 73% of the Malaysian passenger car market! Historically, Proton has not been known to be one of the most reliable or safest cars on the road. (They do export the vehicles, but can't export to the U.S. because their cars would have needed hundreds of changes to meet American safety standards.) This shows us that without a lot of competition, innovation (and safety) lags way behind. However, with the introduction of the Exora last year (which we purchased), Proton may be on a different road? They have designed it to be a safe vehicle with features that are comparable to other brands on the market.