MALAYSIA’S FUTURE DEVELOPMENT IN ELECTRIC CARS

It’s been more than a year since the global pandemic started. Numerous industries have suffered tremendous impacts because of this. However, looking solely at electric car producer, TESLA. Their share price has been up 492% in 2020. On top of that, an analysis predicts TESLA stock price would grow 350% and reach at least $3,000 by 2025. Even with a recent decline in stock price, the company is nearly worth more than the world top 6 automobile’s sale in total. TESLA’s achievement has made several established automakers including Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford make new pushes into electric vehicles.

All automakers are investing in EV worldwide but we really have to ask ourselves “Is Malaysia ready for it?” In Malaysia, the most famous electric car at the moment would be BMW i models. There are also other EV that are offered by brands like TESLA, Nissan, Jaguar and so on. However, there are only 327 public EV charging stations located in 223 locations as of Feb 2021 offered by Charge Now or ChargEV. Most of the stations are focused on the Klang Valley area and Kuala Lumpur area.

Malaysia’s government has taken several initiatives to cut the carbon emission rate in Malaysia like National Automotive Policy (NAP) 2020. However, even the policy itself was heavily criticised because of its lack of definition in EV’s future in Malaysia. It shows that Malaysia seems to have no clear roadmap in this area. These uncertainties have created a significant gap between us and several other asian countries. Even Mercedes-Benz Malaysia pointed out that they need a more defined industry roadmap to follow for the EV strategy earlier in Feb. In july 2020, Minister of International trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Azmin Ali claims that “The restructuring exercise will see the government intensifying its efforts to attract more investments in high-technology segments and environmentally-friendly vehicles as well as in the development of a local skilled-workforce.” However, until now there is no new update about when the revised NAP 2020 would be released.

Malaysia should start to prepare for the future by starting to:

• Train Technical expertise in EV to accommodate the future need;
• Expansion of EV charging station in other states especially east coast;
• Proper education on how EV is contributing to reducing the carbon footprint needs to be given.