Proton officially unveiled its brand new assembly line for the carmaker’s 1.5L TGDi engine – found in the X50 and X70 MC – at Tanjung Malim, Perak. This is the first time the engine is assembled outside of China, and it is said to be one of the most advanced automotive engine assembly lines in Malaysia.

Covering an area of 18,000 sqm, the new plant has a maximum capacity of 180,000 engines when running on three shifts. It actually started operating back in April this year, and the assembly line itself is a part of Proton’s huge RM1.8 billion investment to upgrade its facilities at Tanjung Malim.

Aside from that, Proton also mentioned that the locally assembled 1.5L TGDi engine uses 72 parts supplied by 19 Malaysian (and four ASEAN) vendors. Workers operating the assembly line have undergone extensive training with Geely and the suppliers of the machines used too, which include ABB, COMAU, FEV China, FEV India, WiBeda, and Hangxin.

“Quality is the main priority at our new engine assembly line. We know we need to show Malaysians that Proton is capable of building reliable high-quality products, so we have left nothing to chance,” said the deputy CEO of Proton, Roslan Abdullah.

“Aside from the quality monitoring measures deployed on the assembly line, we also work closely with our counterparts at Geely to troubleshoot issues and share best practices in our efforts to produce a world-class engine,” he added.