I’ve just attended the Proton X90 media preview, where I got to see the new SUV inside and out, so here’s a detailed rundown of what I’ve noticed on the new model. No photography was …
, where I got to see the new SUV inside and out, so here’s a detailed rundown of what I’ve noticed on the new model. No photography was allowed, so this limited set of official images are all that we can show you for now.
Overall, I think it does look really good, but it’s just that after being told repeatedly by Proton Design that the next future Proton model is going to look more localised, with more local flavours and influence, time and time again what we actually get in the end is basically the donor Geely model with a Proton grille. That itself is a clear disappointment.
Once you’re done driving, you can just turn the engine off, walk away, and the system will lock the doors up. There’s no need to touch the sensors on the doors anymore. In BMWs it works perfectly, so we’ll see how this one works soon. Anyhow, it’s a nice next step over the keyless entry system we’ve had over the past 10/15 years.
The top half of the dashboard on the left side is also made of soft touch materials, although the instrument panel cover is all hard plastic, which is a bit of a let down. But overall in terms of quality and fit and finish, it’s mostly impressive. The answer was that integrating CarPlay is not as easy as we may think. Proton deputy CEO Roslan Abdullah said yes, he knows for a fact you can just easily buy a head unit on Shopee with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but for an OEM or a car brand to have them as an official feature is much harder. You’ll need to have official direct contact with Apple and Google, and it’s a very long process.
Also good are the front seats, as they’re both attractive and comfortable, lined in black Nappa leather. That in itself is quite interesting to me, as over the past couple of years, Proton has insisted on putting brown leather on the so-called family or premium cars that they have, like the X70 and even theget black seats, so it’s a bit of a surprise to have this big family car with black leather seats. However, the headliner is still beige, which to me is a good thing.
As for air conditioning, every single row gets their own dedicated vents. The front has a dual-zone climate control system, while the rear section gets separate blower controls. This is technically a manual AC system with digital controls, as you cannot set exact temperatures for the rear cabin. The all-important third row seats are kind of difficult to access. For the six-seater, you have to walk between the captain seats which is a bit narrow, far from ideal. The seven-seater is a little bit easier as you can slide and push the bench forward to clear a wide-ish aperture to climb through. It’s not quite a one-touch tumble mechanism, requiring a bit more effort, but it works well enough. If you’ll be using the last row often, I’d suggest getting the seven-seat version.
With all the seats down, Proton says it will have 2,050 litres of space, which will apparently fit a “four-door fridge or a full-size mattress.” One detail that’s hard to miss is that the boot lip itself is rather high, so while it may well fit, good luck carrying that heavy fridge up to begin with. As a bonus, there’s also a deep under-floor storage, and yes, there’s still a spare tyre for the X90.
The famed Proton ride and handling team has also given the SUV unique tuning to fit our road/driving conditions. According to the development team, the three things that they focused on for the X90 were Premium, Modern and Family, so I would guess that they had tuned the suspension more for comfort rather than dynamics/handling. I’d be surprised otherwise.
As for pricing, Proton has not officially mentioned anything yet, just that it will be positioned very competitively in the market. Funny story on this, Proton CEO Li Chunrong approached me personally after the media preview to ask how much I think the X90 Flagship should be priced at. I answered ideally, I hope it’s going to be around RM140k, RM10k more than the top X70.