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span class="inline inline-left">Locally made: Surakarta Mayor Joko Widodo tests his new, locally made car in front of the city council in Surakarta on Monday. The car was made by students from vocational schools in Surakarta in cooperation with the Education and Culture Ministry. Antara/Akbar Nugroho GumayCars assembled by vocational senior high school students in Surakarta, Central Java, have been attracting mixed responses from high-ranking officials and the general public.

Surakarta Mayor Joko Widodo, for example, has been taking heat for his decision to use the students’ car as his official vehicle.

Central Java Governor Bibit Waluyo called Joko’s decision “reckless”, saying that the car was still in the prototype phase and had not yet been certified as roadworthy.

Meanwhile, House of Representatives speaker Marzuki Alie expressed his support for the students, saying that the car, named the Kiat Esemka, deserved appreciation.

“We need to have a national car. I suggest that the relevant authorities proactively get in touch
with the parties that have the authority to issue the certification. Don’t just wait,” Marzuki said when visiting Surakarta city hall on Wednesday.

Jokowi, as the mayor is called, and Deputy Mayor F.X. Hadi Rudyatmo, made headlines earlier this week when they announced that they chose Kiat Esemka for their official vehicles.

The pair may be the first regional leaders to use domestically produced cars.

Jokowi’s promptly attached his official license plate to the car, which was assembled by students of SMKN 2 Surakarta state senior vocational high school. The car for Hadi was assembled by students of SMK Warga Surakarta.

The cars, which were on loan from the schools, would replace Joko’s and Hadi’s 11-year-old Toyota Camry sedans. The mayor and the deputy mayor declined to allocate fund’s from the city’s budget to replace their official vehicles.

Joko was enthusiastic as he received his vehicle on Monday. “This car is one of a kind. I will use it as an official car. This will give us the spirit to produce our own cars.”

The mayor took his new car out on the road on Tuesday, as did Hadi, who challenged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to follow suit.

“The President has to have the guts to stop importing foreign products,” Hadi said.

SMKN 2 Surakarta principal Susanta said his students spent about three months to assemble the sport utility vehicles, which used a 1,500-cubic-centimeter engine. “Some 80 percent of the materials [used] were domestic products. The rest were imported,” he said.

The engine block, for example, was made in Batur in Klaten, Central Java; while the body was built at the Kiat Motor workshop, also in Klaten, he said.

Imported parts included piston rings, some cylinders and various pieces of metalwork.

“This car indeed is still a prototype and is on loan to the mayor,” Susanta said.

The car, which is also called the Esemka RV 1.5 I, cost about Rp 300 million (US$33,000) to produce.
“If they are produced en masse, we can sell them for Rp 95 million per unit,” the owner of Kiat Motors, Sukiyat said.

Sukiyat said his workshop had so far produced 10 units of the car in cooperation with 10 senior vocational high schools in Greater Surakarta, which covers Surakarta city and the regencies of Boyolali, Sukoharjo, Wonogiri, Sragen, Karang-anyar and Klaten.