Perodua’s Going All Rocky And Taking The Gloves Off With Its SUV Effort

2020 is shaping up to be a battle royale between the two local carmakers as both pit their compact SUV prized fighters in the ring of sales volume. Fresh off its announcement that it’ll be introducing the highly anticipated X50 this year, Proton can now look forward to some fierce competition from Perodua’s own SUV that’s expected to be launched this year and be based on the Daihatsu Rocky.

Perodua and Daihatsu have been in bed for a long time and that alliance will bear fruit as the former aims to transform into an ASEAN development hub.

Another of the industry’s worse kept secrets, Perodua’s upcoming compact SUV had a few more hints peppered about it during the carmaker’s 2019 annual review this week.

Perodua displayed plans for model development based on the Daihatsu New Global Architecture (DNGA) platform. You know what model currently rides on said platform? No prizes for guessing it’s the Daihatsu Rocky.

While stopping short of confirmation, the carmaker did verify that its next model will ride on DNGA. We don’t need our abacus to put two and two together.

Further fueling the Rocky-based SUV flame was the focus on following market trends towards downsizing its engines. While Perodua already utilises a comparatively small-displacement engine family, the next step would be to further downsize for added fuel efficiency and lower emissions while turbocharging will compensate for the loss in power.

You know what model is powered by a 1.0 litre turbocharged engine? That’s right, the Daihatsu Rocky. The math adds up.

The Rocky even comes with Level 2 autonomous driving in Japan although it remains to be seen if we’ll get the same level of kit when Perodua gets to work on it.

Electrification was also brought up but in seeing the Perodua customer demographic, expect light implementation of the tech to keep costs affordable before they progress any further.

Lastly, Perodua mentioned it now possesses the capability to launch a new and facelifted model each every year. You’ll remember the refreshed Bezza launched a couple of weeks ago? Well, shouldn’t that mean that a new model is next on the cards?

So, in conclusion we can see that the next vehicle will ride on the DNGA platform, most likely have a turbocharged engine and be an all-new model.

Even though comparisons are inevitable, the Perodua compact SUV won’t go head on against the Proton X50. Instead, it’ll be positioned below, being a little more diminutive and priced accordingly as well.

In the meantime, enjoy the photos of the Perodua X Concept from the Kuala Lumpur International Motor Show 2018 that rather interestingly resembles the Rocky quite a bit and should give you a fair idea of what the Perodua SUV will resemble.