Mercedes-Benz to Have New Regional Parts Distribution Centre in Johor - Estimated to Begin Operations in 2024

Mercedes-Benz recently announced that they have finalized the plans for a regional After-Sales Logistics Centre in Malaysia. The new centre will be located at Senai Airport City - Johor Bahru where Mercedes-Benz has signed a long-term lease agreement for the location. Operations are planned for the beginning of 2024 withTiong Nam Logistics Solutions Sdn Bhd.named as the lead developer of the project. This is definitely good news in terms of investments into Malaysia especially in terms of putting more jobs on the table for Malaysians coming out of pandemic lockdowns.

Epicor is Scuderia AlphaTauri's ERP Partner - Epicor logo to debut on Scuderia AlphaTauri cars at the Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas

 

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Some motorsport/Formula 1 related news here. On October 20, 2021 Epicor, an industry-specific enterprise software to promote business growth, and Scuderia AlphaTauri had announced that Epicor has been named the Team’s Official ERP Partner. To those, like me even, who does not have a clue of what ERP here stands for it is not Electronic Road Pricing (which is what Singapore uses for their road congestion charges) but something called Enterprise Resource Planning. This is basically a system which is  used by a company to manage key parts of its business such as accounting, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. So here, Epicor's Kinetic cloud based software will be keeping track of a Formula1 team's daily business activities and their logo will make it debut on the Scuderia AlphaTauri car at tje Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas

Hino Poncho Minibus Goes into New Trial Routes in Kuala Lumpur and in Penang

Hino Motors Sales (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (Hino) and Rapid Bus Sdn Bhd (Rapid Bus) is continuing trials with the Hino Poncho compact bus. The routes for the new trial run are in more challenging routes in and around Kuala Lumpur and also in Penang. This comes after a successful initial 2 month trial run for routes aroud Petaling Jaya in 2019. The 7-meter low-floor Hino Poncho minibus is Hino's solution for transport accessibility in tight and narrow roads and this second trial in Kuala Lumpur, commencing from early October 2021 to the end of April 2022, will cater to route T180 – from Taman Dato’ Senu to Chow Kit, and route 302,which is from Titiwangsa to KLCC. As for Penang Island, the Poncho will cater to route 11 which is from Pengkalan Weld to Batu Lanchang, and route 201 which caters for Pengkalan Weld to Tingkat Paya, Terubong.

The Very Luxurious All-New Land Rover Defender Finally Gets its Malaysian Debut

Finally, the re-imagined new Land Rover Defender 110 has arrived in Malaysia. It has taken awhile, namely due to the pandemic dropping in and making life a little bit different from everyone but it is here. Jaguar Land Rover Malaysia launched the new Defender with two variants, namely the 2.0L 300PS Ingenium 4-cylinder Electronic Control, Direct-injection petrol engine and the 3.0L 400PS MHEV (Mild Hybrid Electric Vehicle) 6-cylinder petrol engine. 

The asking price of the 2.0L 300PS variant starts from RM798,800 while the 3.0L 400PS MHEV starts from RM998,800 (price is inclusive of 50% Penjana Sales Tax waiver, excluding Road Tax, Registration and Insurance). But if you add the optional roof rack or the optional snorkel ad utility box you see in the car below, its going to be a whole lot more. Yes, the price is nothing like the price of the old Defender 110 when it was offered here but this re-imagined Defender is nothing like the old namesake actually.

Site Update: I'm basically BACK! But the articles will be slow for the time being....

I'm back folks! News pieces will come soon as things are finally coming back to normal here in Malaysia as the country comes out of various forms of Covid-19 Pandemic lockdowns. Malaysia has over 95% vaccination rates for adults and this is why I have decided to start writing again. With economic activities opening up again, we can actually see, touch and feel the cars, trucks and whatever modes of transport. With experience, and only with actually experiencing these machines will writing about it make most sense for me to do.