The new roadmap for Proton’s future will also include hybrid and electric vehicles, it has been confirmed today. When asked about the introduction of new energy vehicles, chairman Datuk Seri Syed Faisal Albar said that these products are very much in the pipeline.

Board member and Geely vice president and chief financial officer Daniel Donghui Li added, “Geely will provide a transmission which will not only be able to handle a few cars, but will also be flexible enough to be equipped with new energy solutions, including hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric. We will also provide new product development, including our new models and also hybrid and electric cars.”

Li also said that while Geely has made a significant investment in these technologies, the same is not expected of Proton. “Geely needed to invest tens of billions of dollars to do all this new product development,” he said. “We do not ask Proton to make all this kind of additional investment. So Proton will only need to invest on the production and plant upgrading, quality improvement and the introduction of new products.”

Geely currently builds the Emgrand EV300, an electric version of the Emgrand (née Emgrand 7) sedan. Power comes from a 127 hp electric motor and a 41 kWh lithium-ion battery, resulting in a real-world range of 300 km, a zero-to-100 km/h sprint time of 9.9 seconds and a top speed of 140 km/h. The car takes seven hours to be fully charged, and can also be fast charged to 80% capacity in 45 minutes.

The company is also working on a plug-in hybrid powertrain in conjunction with Volvo – it consists of a 180 hp 1.5 litre turbocharged three-cylinder engine paired to a 74 hp electric motor, a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and a 9.7 kWh lithium-ion traction battery.

Headline figures include maximum outputs of 247 hp and nearly 400 Nm of torque, as well as a projected zero-to-100 km/h time of 6.5 seconds and an electric range of over 50 km. The technology is being developed for use in cars built on the Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), including the new Volvo XC40 and the Lynk & Co 01 SUV.