Perodua president and CEO Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Ahmad has told Careta in a video interview that the Bezza in its current form will soldier on until 2030 – no new model is planned for launch in the near future.
“I’ll be honest, this was actually the triggering point for (us developing our own BEV), because there were no new models to replace our aging ICE models. Now that we’ve launched the QV-E and are working on the second model, they have started to come back to us to discuss development of the new Bezza and Myvi,” Zainal said.
While not explicitly stated, “they” here most likely refers to Perodua’s partner since day one, Daihatsu, which was almost brought to a standstill by a safety scandal in 2023. “It’s just that (the discussions have come) very late, so we can’t get (the new models) out before 2030,” the president and CEO added.
The ride-hailing favourite and Malaysia’s best-selling four-wheeled thing for three consecutive years will be celebrating its 10th birthday this year, still based on the old Axia‘s platform. We’d expect the sedan to follow its hatched sister into the Daihatsu New Global Architecture (DNGA) era, with a new in-house-designed ‘top hat’ of course. Six airbags, finally? After all, this 70,000-bookings guy already has six…
Theophilus Chin’s next-gen Bezza renderings since 2022
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Going to be a repeat of first generation Alza in terms of years available on sale and continued demand?
All the development money invested in qve already ..and it’s not coming back. So bezza has to march in to milk as much back as possible
We must really respect their perseverance. Stupidity is another story but they get 10/10 for perseverance.
dont forget to mention buyer stupidity who keep on buying same old model for 15 years
it’s giving Nissan Sunny in the 1980s in Malaysia, it just kept on going…
LoL… no new funds as the failed EV gig usurped surplus funds with nil returns.
I really don’t understand why they chose to develop a car from the ground up, when the risk for a super new segment (only 2% of TIV makes up EV volume), as opposed to a rebadge. Toyota and Daihatsu cannot or won’t do it I understand. They could have gone with any number of middle kingdom brands, cutting their costs.
RM1.0b is the cost to develop a car from the ground up. To make it work thereafter, you need to absolutely make the car sell, including globally, to see any decent ROI.
I hope they have learnt the lesson. They had a good thing going with the rebadging plus some co-developed models. Keep it that way!
Hopefully the saga mc3 will be able beat the bezza and let perodua tastes some bitterness.