It appears that work on Indonesia’s newest national car – previewed at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) in July – is progressing nicely, with production expected to begin within the next three years, according to the country’s president Prabowo Subianto.
“I have allocated funds, we have prepared land for the factories. The team is currently working. We have already produced Indonesian-made jeeps,” he said during his cabinet’s first-year meeting yesterday, local magazine Tempo reported.
Prabowo added that he is already using one of those 4x4s – a civilian version of the military-spec Maung manufactured by state-owned defence contractor PT Pindad (Persero) – and other members of the government should follow suit.
Last year, Prabowo expressed his intention for the Maung to become the government’s official vehicle, issuing a written statement saying: “I have planned that most likely, all ministers, all vice ministers, director generals, and officials at the level of governors, regents, and mayors should use vehicles made by our own nation.”
It should be noted that the i2C (Indonesian Indigenous Car) shown at GIIAS is the product of a different defence contractor, PT Teknologi Militer Indonesia (TMI). The car, designed locally with the assistance of Italdesign, is a rather more refined three-row electric SUV taking cues from the Kia EV9 and Hyundai Kona.
The i2C project is set to use a platform and technologies from an as-yet-unnamed (likely Chinese) foreign partner, with initial specs including outputs of 204 PS (150 kW) and 310 Nm, a 83.4 kWh nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery and a range of 617 km on China’s lenient CLTC cycle. It’s targeted to enter production in either late 2027 or early 2028, so it looks to be still on schedule.
Minister of industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita echoed Prabowo’s comments, saying that on Thursday, his ministry submitted a proposal for the national car project to become a national strategic project (PSN). “We have already signed the proposal,” he said. “If it becomes a PSN, I think the realisation will be faster.”
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With as many as 280 million population, and over half of them middle income and a huge chunk of the people live in poverty for indonesia to have a national car brand needs something else for the commoner instead of a luxury EV.
Think of a small car like honda jazz, with a sedan variant and also a small MPV on the same platform like Honda Airwave. That’s suits the indonesia market very well.
Political announcements often use ambitious “three-year” targets. But execution is messy, subject to bureaucracy, land acquisition, regulatory approvals, funding disbursement, supply-chain disruptions.
But the three year time frame is optimistic. I expect a pilot/limited model within three years, mass market and full local-component car within maybe 5-7 years if all goes right. If things don’t go smoothly, then it could stretch to 10 years or remain symbolic.
i am skeptical (with timor & esemka history in mind). The signals are better this time (funds + land + already some domestic vehicle production) but the devil is in the execution.
Better than Jokowi’s Esemka project.
keep in mind that malaysian per-capita car sales is 8x, yes eight times that of indonesia. really shows how great and successful our gomen is.
Nice Malaysia’s Proton is with Mitsubishi from 1983 – 2005 (wink wink and every one knows what happens before, during and after that time) and then Geely with Proton since 2018 till today lets see if you could do better.
How come our ministers here not using Proton???? Too cheapskate for you people or you are not patriotic????
i guess indonesia might also have a bapak Tun who also inspired them to “look east”
Indonesia should not make the same mistake as Malaysia with a locally manufactured national car. Car manufacturing isn’t necessary to be a developed country. This is just condemning your population to buy mediocre cars in a protected market while better cars are priced out of their reach.
These guys are mabuk
Another chapter similar to proton. Rakyat kena con