Announcing this, state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow said the state has placed an order with Toyota for 15 brand new Toyota Camry 2.5 Auto to replace the older vehicles comprising a mixture of Mercedes Benz and Proton Perdana V6. ”The total costs of purchasing these new cars come up to RM1.705 million which comes to about RM113,700 per unit,” he told a press conference at Komtar today. The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government had wanted to change the ageing cars, which Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng had said costs a lot to maintain, since it took over the state administration back in 2008. However, the state did not implement its plans to replace the official state cars at that time after widespread criticisms from the public and now, in its second term, the PR administration finally decided to take the plunge and replace the old cars. ”The costs of maintaining all 21 official state cars was RM370,400 in 2011, RM383,000 last year and for this year, up until now, RM301,238,” Chow said. All of the official cars are more than 15 years old, with the oldest one a 21-year-old Mercedes Benz 200E. When asked why the state had decided on Toyota instead of the national car, Proton, Chow said the Proton Perdana is no longer in production and there are no other Proton cars in the same category. He also said it was not a matter of patriotism when even the Barisan Nasional federal government had replaced their official cars with Honda Accord and not with Proton cars. ”We decided on Toyota Camry as it is the most reasonably priced for this category as compared to us getting other brand cars such as Mercedes or BMW,” he said. Back in 2008, for the brief period that it was the state government, the Perak PR state government had also purchased a new fleet of official cars  - also Toyota Camry - earning it widespread criticisms for spending state funds unnecessarily and for not purchasing the national car Proton. After Barisan Nasional took over the Perak state administration in 2009, the whole fleet of Toyota Camry were sold off and replaced with Proton Perdana. The Penang state government is applying for tax and excise duty exemption for the 15 cars which is why each unit only costs RM113,700 as compared to the market price of RM174,820 per unit. ”To get tax and excise duty exemption, we have to place the order directly with Toyota and once we get the exemption, they will start assembling the cars so we can expect to get the cars by November this year,” Chow said. The 15 cars will replace the cars of the Penang chief minister, all 10 state executive councillors’, three state officials and the state assembly Speaker. The new cars will replace nine Proton Perdana V6 Executive and six different models of Mercedes Benz. Chow said the cars that cost a lot to repair will be disposed off while the ones that are still in relatively good condition will be given to the district officers and department heads who had requested for new official cars three years ago. ”Some of their cars are in even worse conditions and not road worthy so the cars that are still in good condition after repair will replace their old official cars,” he said.