If you're one of the people waiting for an X50 or planning on ordering one, at least the standard variant, we have bad news for you.
Standard variant in low supply
Carlist reported that Proton is advising all sales outlets to either halt or stop accepting new orders for the standard variant of the popular SUV.Citing a document that the website says has been authenticated, it said that the circular sent to sales outlets asked them to encourage buyers of the lowest variant to upgrade to Executive, Premium, or Flagship X50 variants.
The document, which looks like a memo that's meant to be circulated internally, sports the signatures of Roslan Abdullah, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Proton Edar, and Edmund Lim, the director of sales of Proton Edar.
Proton has, meanwhile, kept mum and not made any public comments on the matter.
Buyers are getting impatient
Ever since the B-segment SUV was officially unveiled in September, Proton has been plagued by supply problems.The local carmaker has reportedly received more than 30,000 bookings for the X50 in the first month of its release, and as of March, Proton has only delivered 11,654 units.
The waiting period for the car is reportedly between six to nine months, depending on the variant.
If you go to Proton X50 fan pages, there are plenty of people, some who even placed their bookings in September, commenting about getting tired of waiting for the car, and not just for the standard variant.
Even those who opted for higher spec ones have been waiting for their turn for months.
One guy got so tired of waiting, he even wrote a long pantun to express himself:
We wonder how much longer buyers will have to wait to get their hands on the Proton X50 before turning to other options.
Hopefully, Proton will come up with a solution or at least a statement to explain the situation soon.