Is Proton X50 capable enough to compete against the Honda HR-V?

Proton Malaysia launched their first ever SUV,the Proton X70 in late year 2018 partnership with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.The Proton X70 have created excellent sales record and bring the image of Proton brand to another level.After approximately 2 years of waiting,Proton Malaysia have officially launched the Proton X50.The Proton X50 is Proton's B-Segment crossover SUV which competes against the B-segment crossover king,the Honda HR-V!

This bring us to the discussion,is the Proton X50 capable enough to compete against the Honda HR-V?Well let's start discuss from different aspects:

1)Exterior Styling

We all know the Honda HR-V has been in our market for quite some times and it received one facelift in year 2019 so in terms of the styling it's less exciting compared to the Proton X50 which features a much more sofisticated design.The Proton X50 is originally based on the Geely Binyue in China or the Geely Coolray in Philippines with some minor changes including the "Infinite Weave"design on the front grill,thundercat badge,rear "Proton" and "X50" wordings.The side profile of the Proton X50 is a very typical crossover SUV design with the signature C pillar windows line as the big brother,Proton X70.The rear features 3 stripes LED taillights and quad exhaust pipes which adds more sporty feel to the exterior styling.The Proton X50 also offers some exciting colour compared to the Honda HR-V such as Snow White, Armour Silver, Jet Grey, Ocean Blue, Citric Orange and Passion Red which makes the car more interesting.

2) Performance

Performance of the Proton X50 is excellent in it's segment.The normal 1.5L turbocharged 3-cylinder petrol engine from the Standard,Executive and Premium variant easily out perform the Honda HR-V in 150hp and 226NM of torque compared to the HR-V which only has 140hp and 173NM of torque from a 1.8L SOHC i-VTEC 4-cylinder petrol engine.There is also the higher output 1.5L TGDI 3-cylinder petrol engine from the Flagship variant generates 175hp and 255Nm of torque and it's almost identical to the power output from the c-segment Honda Civic.Transmission of the Proton x50 is the 7-speed dual-clutch automatic which provides a better fuel economy and smoothness to the car.

3)Interior Design

Different from the Proton X70 which have an old interior design philosophy from Geely,the Proton X50 being the latest model which uses Geely's all new interior design is by far the best looking interior in the market.The overall quality, touch points,design of the interior is easily more attractive than the Honda HR-V with only full black theme interior and brown mixture for the RS variant.The Proton X50 have offered a two tone interior with mixture of red and black leatherette for the Premium and Flagship variant and Standard and Executive being full black interior.All new flat-bottom steering,LCD instrument panel,leatherette semi bucket seats with electronic adjustment for the Premium and Flagship variant,brush aluminium finished panel,floating 10.25 inch GKUI 19 touchscreen system which support voice command for the Premium and Flagship variant and 8 inch for Standard and Executive variant.But unfortunately it doesn't support AppleCarPlay nor Android Auto which is an important item for year 2020 whereby everyone need to use Google Maps or Waze as navigation to a destination or Spotify for music streaming.But there is screen mirroring function which you could project your phone's interface to the infotainment system.The rear seat legroom and headroom isn't as spacious as the Honda HR-V but you still could find a comfortable seating position as the seat base is rather long and the seat back is slightly recline eventhough it's in fix angle.But the seat base of the Proton X50 doesn't fold up like you would in the Honda HR-V which adds more in terms of practicality.

4)Safety

The last segment we are going to discuss is the safety.This let's the Proton X50 throw the Honda HR-V to another decade.Instead of 6 airbags,ABS,EBD,TCS,HSA,etc which every car has to offered.The Proton X50 Flagship is equipped with the most and the only advanced L2 autonomous driving system in it's segment which offer functions including autonomous emergency braking,forward collision warning, adaptive cruise control, intelligent cruise control,lane keep assist,lane departure warning,blind spot warning and intelligent high beam system.Furthermore,the Honda HR-V only comes with Honda lane watch camera and didn't came with Honda Sensing feature like most Honda vehicle have such as the Honda CR-V and the facelifted Honda Civic.

Conclusion:

In conclusion,the Proton X50 is capable to compete against the Honda HR-V. From the overall quality,features,comfort, performance and safety that it offers,it can easily compete with more higher segment vehicle.I guess this ends the topic of the Proton X50 is capable to competes against the Honda HR-V and I believe the Proton X50 will definitely become the B-segment crossover dominator in the future.