The Proton eMas 5. You know the company calls it ‘Malaysia’s first affordable EV’. You know its RM60k-80k estimated price range. You know over 3,000 people have put their names down for one. You know it’s essentially a Geely EX2/Geome Xingyuan. You know it’ll be fully imported (CBU) first and locally-assembled (CKD) later. You know what it’s like inside and out. You know there’s no Proton input in its suspension, ride and handling.
That’s a lot you already know, but there are still three missing pieces of the puzzle – the final price, details of any lesser variant(s), and what it’s like to drive. At the moment it looks like we’ll only have answers to the first two at launch, which, if everything goes to plan for Pro-Net, will not at all be far away. Happily, today we can answer the third question, albeit not without some caveats.
Earlier this week, we went to Proton’s Shah Alam test track (possibly and sadly for the very last time). There, we subjected the national carmaker’s second zero-emissions vehicle to a series of dynamic exercises and a high-speed blast on the banked oval. The uneven testing surfaces were not made available to us, so we unfortunately cannot report with conviction on how the non-Proton-tuned suspension would address bad roads – but we can take Danny’s word for it for now.
We only had a few hours with the car, and only the Premium variant was there; this is the one with 116 PS, 150 Nm of torque, a 40.16-kWh battery and a 325 km WLTP range. All tests were done with four people in the car including the driver, so do digest this report with that taken into consideration.
First up, straight-line acceleration. Officially, it’s 0-50 km/h in 3.9 seconds, but we’re informed on the side that the 0-100 km/h time is around 10 seconds. This checks out, as the eMas 5 pulls cleanly and hard from a standstill up to 50-60 km/h, after which it begins to taper off slightly.
It’s not especially fast by EV standards, but it does beat the ‘king’ Myvi in acceleration and response, which should be good for the many cut-and-thrust situations we face daily in Malaysian traffic. Under very heavy braking, despite a rather pronounced nose-dive, the vehicle tracks straight and true, scrubbing off speed with next to no drama. By the way, Proton claims a class-leading 100-0 km/h braking distance of 36.9 metres.
A tight slalom gave the eMas 5 a chance to show off its chuckability. Being rear-wheel drive (RWD), the car is more inclined to yaw given sharp steering movements, and you can just about feel the swing of the back end as it works to point the car to where you want to go. Banish from your mind any drifting ideas though, because A, you don’t quite have enough grunt for that here, and B, the geometry is still set up for safe understeer when you combine excessive amounts of throttle and steering angle.
The steering is light and devoid of feel, but linear, accurate and perfectly adequate for day-to-day driving. It could be a touch lower-geared though, as while the eMas 5’s tight 4.95-metre turning radius (helped, we’re sure, by it being RWD, since the front wheels are unencumbered by driveshafts and can therefore turn more) came in handy in the figure of eight, one does need to apply more lock, and faster, than expected.
This was much less of an issue in the wide slalom that followed, the car able to carry a good turn of speed through the gates. Changing direction at speed also demonstrated fairly good road-holding from those 205/60 Linglongs, at least in the dry – wet performance is usually where more budget-oriented tyres falter. It’s quite fun to drive, really.
One sharp turn later brought us to a long, sweeping left-hander, where again, the eMas 5 clung adequately well to the tarmac with little body roll (having the heavy battery underneath the occupants must help things on the centre-of-gravity front). We do have to report, however, that when under throttle in this sustained left turn, a relatively high-pitched grinding sound was audible from the rear-right, eventually disappearing.
Initially we dismissed this as an anomaly, but the sound was also heard in another car we later drove on the banked oval, again when turning left. Because there were no sweeping right turns that day, we do not know if turning right would produce the same sound from the rear-left (in other words, the outside-rear corner), but we did bring it up to Pro-Net and we’re sure the team is looking into it.
High-speed performance is OK – stability is good and next to no minor steering corrections were needed to keep the car in lane. Wind noise is audible after 80 km/h, becoming what you’d deem loud only after 110 km/h. We wouldn’t let that take away from the car’s refinement, which is otherwise above par – certainly miles better than your average B-segment hatch. 135 km/h is officially the top speed, at least for this Premium variant, but we did manage to touch 140 km/h on the oval.
Some notes about the driving position – while I had no complaints, the steering wheel (which is not telescopically adjustable) was too close for Hafriz, and he couldn’t find a comfortable seating position. In the back, while legroom is acceptable, head- and shoulder-room are at a premium, and the rather upright backrest (not recline-adjustable) suggests that long journeys would not be paradise for rear occupants.
This is primarily a city car – the modest WLTP range corroborates that – and in that respect it fulfils the brief, with the added bonus of being rather nimble and sprightly. A hot hatch it is not, but now that the Iriz has left us… dare I call the eMas 5 its spiritual successor in terms of fun-to-drive-ness (without ‘Proton ride and handling’; what irony!), or would that be pushing it? It certainly doesn’t communicate with the receptors in your fingers and your buttocks the way the Iriz did, but it’s still a very good try.
The RM60-80k estimated price range silences nearly all my grouses. With the Proton eMas 5, you’re getting a perfectly inoffensive little runabout that’s practical (70-litre frunk, 375-litre boot that’s expandable to 1,320 litres, under-seat storage), doesn’t feel cheap and is both easy and fun to drive. It had better make as much hay as it can before the Perodua EV comes though, since that’s still very much an unknown.
Compare prices between different insurer providers to save the most on your car insurance renewal compared to other competing services. Many payment method supported and you can pay with instalment using Grab PayLater or Shopee SPayLater.
