Cutthroat TOYOTA!

Recently, Toyota Malaysia launched a hybrid version of their car, toyota prius in Malaysia with price of RM175,000 or equivalent to about USD 50,000. That is ridiculous.

Prior to that, honda has already been selling their honda civic hybrid at RM130,000 which is equivalent to about USD 37,142.

Comparing with the information from the web, the civic hybrid is selling at USD 24,360 in the US. It implies that the price in Malaysia is USD12,782 more expensive or at a thrilling RM44,700. With that amount of money, one can buy a Proton Persona 1.6 A/T.

So what is with extra money Malaysian has to pay to buy a non-Malaysian car? Is it tax? or is it the distributor in Malaysia is reaping for a lot of profit. I would think that it is both.

Then, what about toyota? Their selling price in the US is USD22,750 or equivalent to aboout RM 79,625. The difference in prices for Malaysia as compared to US is a whooping RM95,375. Woohoo! You can even buy a small house with that!

If the extra RM44,700 we would have to pay to buy civic hybrid is the tax, then, what is with the extra RM95,375 for the prius? are we that stupid to buy a car that is unnecessarily expensive? even with their catchy advertisement of saving the planet and go green, yo!

the government has to do something about this if they are serious about saving the planet. or is this about saving the oil industry? if the prius is affordable and everyone change to prius or similar hybrid cars, the demand for petrol will drop by 50% or more!

lu fikirlah sendiri...