The early bird doesn’t always catch the worm, at least not anymore these days. The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) opines that the car price war in Malaysia, which has seen price cuts and discounts in a bid to chase sales, is neither good for the industry nor owners in the long term. “I think discounting is always good for the short term, but it’s not good for the long term, especially for customers. Eventually the car’s value will drop further – especially for the early buyer, you will actually lose out, and it will create a much more non-effective way of selling, because it will be short term,” said president Mohd Shamsor Mohd Zain. “Of course, definitely there must be some kind of promotions, but overdoing it is always not good. Basically I think we’re all on the same page about that,” he added. Here are some examples of the latest offers – Honda is currently giving up to RM10k off, Toyota up to RM10.5k, Proton RM15k, Chery RM16k, Mitsubishi RM18k, Nissan RM22k and Peugeot RM30k – and that’s even before we go into EVs, where the drops are almost diabolical. Proton recently said it won’t be joining the price war in Malaysia in a bid to protect resale values – even though it arguably started the war in the first place by significantly undercutting the BYD Atto 3 (it has since decided to make the RM4,000 ‘early bird discount’ permanent). BYD responded with the Atto 3 Ultra in March – down RM26k to RM124k (RM119k with rebate). The Atto 3 was launched in end-2022 for RM168k, so that’s a near-RM50k drop. Then the Chery Omoda E5 joined the party with a RM27,000 cut to make RM119,818 for 2024 units. This became a RM98,818 clearance sale in May. The electric Omoda was launched in March 2024 for RM146,800. More recently, smaller players like the GAC Aion Y Plus and Leapmotor C10 also had to drop their RRPs just to remain in the frame. The latter, which has the biggest body, gets improved specs and is now priced at RM125,000 – it was launched in October 2024 for RM159,000, or RM149,000 with an early bird discount. There are also 2024 units going for RM110k.
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