Proton e.MAS 5 EV Interior & Key Info Revealed

The Proton e.MAS 5 will likely be the most affordable and value-for-money EV upon its launch.

Author’s Note: we were allowed to share photos of the wrapped exterior, exposed interior, and SOME angles of the exposed exterior but not any of the slides, thus the random assortment of images shown here.

Yesterday, we got to check out a preview of the upcoming Proton e.MAS 5 EV. It’s based on the Geely Xingyuan, which was launched in China in September 2024 and already sold about 205,000 units in under a year.

There’s some confusion as to how it’s positioned in China but the gist of it is this. It may have been originally intended for the most affordable EV brand under Geely’s umbrella ‘Geometry‘.

This is evidenced by the fact that it wears a ‘Geome’ badge in China. However, somewhere along the line, Geely decided to market it under their new and independent mid-tier EV brand ‘Galaxy’, which sits a tier below their premium ‘Zeekr’ EV brand.

Not The Same As Donor

The Geely Xingyuan is not sold outside of China, Proton made some massive structural changes to the chassis in order for the e.MAS 5 to be crash test worthy to global standards. They’ve also made minor changes to suspension in order to be suited to our rougher road conditions, but not enough to warrant slapping ‘Proton Ride & Handling’ badges on it.

While pricing for the e.MAS 5 has yet to be revealed, Proton already knows that it intends to target two distinct crowds primarily – the career starters and the young families. This signals to us that it will be priced below the RM100,000 mark though CKD plans were not shared with us.

It might mean that some sort of deal is being struck with the government. In the past, the Proton X70 was sold as a CBU unit with CKD pricing as part of a special arrangement, perhaps something similar will be done here, but that’s pure speculation.

Platform, Packaging, Performance

Besides that, we also know that the e.MAS 5 is built on the same Global Intelligent New Energy Architecture (GEA) as the e.MAS 7 (Geely Galaxy EX5 in other markets). The GEA allows Geely to produce a wide variety of battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles due to its modularity.

In this case, the e.MAS 5 has its motor mounted at the rear of the vehicle. This effectively makes it Proton’s first ever rear-engine, rear-wheel drive vehicle. It’s plenty crowded around back but the e.MAS 5 still makes room for a multi-link rear suspension layout, which you might not expect in such a compact package.

Despite the advantages of this rare layout, Proton is not putting much emphasis on the performance aspects of the e.MAS 5. They did emphasize the vehicle’s safety systems were very quick to respond to fishtailing (10ms response time to lower torque for anti-slip system), which might be a concern of some customers. It has a claimed 100km/h to 0km/h braking distance of just 36.9m, and a turning circle of 4.95m.

They say that the engine was rear mounted for the sake of giving customers a sizable front trunk or frunk. For its class, the frunk is relatively large at 70L – more than enough for some cables.

What’s more, the hood is held up by hydraulic lifters which are quite rare on sub-RM100,000 vehicles. There’s also a powered tailgate, another rarity at this price point. Proton says the e.MAS 5 has some 30 storage compartments throughout the vehicle.

Despite sharing the same platform as its bigger brother, the e.MAS 7, the e.MAS 5 does not feature a Geely-sourced Aegis Short Blade battery. Instead, it relies on the same CATL-sourced battery, which uses the same lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry, but without all the marketing hype.

Proton says there are no plans in the pipeline for a battery update on the e.MAS 5 to its own knowledge. This is the battery unit powering the Chinese version for almost a year and it will not be updated to a Geely sourced unit.

Unfortunately, due to the size and capacity and energy density of the LFP battery pack, the e.MAS 5 is rated for just 325km on the WLTP cycle. In the real world, we’d expect it to return about 10-15% less range depending on conditions.

It’s no slouch but don’t expect this to be a high-performance EV. Even if Proton fits this with the more powerful 114 hp motor, it will have a top speed of just 135km/h.

Other aspects of the Proton e.MAS 5 that were confirmed were a 14.6″ infotainment unit with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto built in from the factory. The car also has voice assistant available in English and Malay, a feature that was first debuted in the recent Proton X50 facelift.

Proton also boast that the e.MAS 5 features an automotive grade chip to power its infotainment while its rivals use a smartphone grade chip, which should give it more consistent performance in heat though no industry-approved comparative figures on this matter have been shared by Proton.

Look and Feel

Another final thing to note is on cosmetics. The interior has been specified in white for the pre-production unit at least. This is a pretty bold choice given Malaysians are pretty conservative when it comes to interior colour choices. It’s not clear if this is the final upholstery option or even if it’s the only interior option.

Just this week GWM updated their Haval H6 HEV with a black interior, which the company believes will end up being the more popular option. Then again we’ve also heard that the Xpeng G6 has had more customers opting for a white interior rather than a black one, so maybe EV buyers are in a class of its own with regards to matters of taste.

There’s a dual tone steering wheel and a ‘crystal’ stubby gear selector that are not common to find in more affordable vehicles and Proton wants customers to pay attention to these things.

Besides that, the e.MAS 5 features 16″ wheels, putting it in the same club as the BYD Dolphin base model and the Neta V for having the smallest rims of all EVs sold in Malaysia. Besides that, the e.MAS 5 still sports the star-themed plastic cladding on the C-pillar, which is a nod to the meaning behind the Xingyuan name – which translates to ‘wish upon a star’. It is unknown if this will be blanked out for the production model.

Final Thoughts

To be quite fair, I think there’s plenty of things to be excited about here. The Chinese equivalent is priced at under RM60,000 and while we’re not expecting such aggressive pricing from Proton, we’re optimistic that they will have to find a sub-RM100,000 price tag for this car to attract any attention. The spec, feel and overall appeal of the car would be through the roof if priced aggressively but it would be extremely unappealing if a six figure price tag was all that can be managed, particularly with that meager 325km range.

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