During the unveiling of Proton’s Electric Vehicle (EV) sub-brand – Proton e.Mas, the national carmaker has announced that it aims to have over 20 EV dealerships throughout Malaysia by the end of this year.
Proton’s Senior Director of Corporate Strategy, Yusri Yusuf, said their network planning team is currently evaluating over 50 applications to become Proton EV dealers. The target is to have over 20 outlets by the end of this year which will cover the network model of EV Centre (3S) and EV Space (1S) with comprehensive customer service in providing excellent ownership experience.
Eventually, the national carmaker aims to have 30 outlets by 2025.
Proton says the progress of appointing dealers is on track and 17 dealers have been appointed. As revealed during the launch, the 17 appointed Proton e.Mas dealerships are located at Kota Kinabalu, Kota Bharu, Butterworth, Georgetown, Kuantan, Medini, Plentong, Taiping, Ipoh, Cheras, Jalan Kuching, Jalan Tun Razak, Petaling Jaya, Glenmarie, Rawang and Puncak Jalil.
Proton says they are also engaging with EV Charge Point Operators (CPO) to address customer’s concerns and to provide charging facilities for EV owners. They will establish a one-stop centre to manage charging requirements related to equipment, installation, after sales support and also digital platform.
To expand public EV charging infrastructure, Proton has collaborated with several CPOs to set up AC and DC charging stations at Proton outlets including the newly appointed dealers. As of today, there are a total of 37 EV charging stations made available to the public, located at Proton and Smart outlets. This includes 14 DC chargers at Proton dealerships and 9 DC chargers at Smart dealerships.
Leveraging Pro-Net’s experience in managing the distributorship of Smart EVs, Proton says the ultimate goal for its EV sub-brand is to provide the widest coverage and the number 1 user experience in Malaysia.
Pro-Net currently has access to over 75% of EV charge points in Malaysia with its current partnership with Gentari, JomCharge, ChargEV and ChargeSini, and Proton aims to increase its EV charging footprint to over 85% by the end of the year. It shared that it is working to integrate Charge+, DC Handal and Go-To U.
Proton is confident that the transition to EVs will be more convenient to EV owners with accessible information through a single platform. The first Proton e.Mas EV is expected to launch in December 2024.
