Last year saw a resurgence in Malaysian locally assembled cars, with sales that totalled 702,275, its highest level ever. This is a far cry from the previous year when a mere 481, 651 were pushed out the doors, largely due to COVID-disrupted supply chains.
Across the entire supply chain, everyone is busy with some of the local big guns. Perodua, a Toyota affiliate, with a capacity of 320,000 units per annum is running a nine-month waiting list for some of their more popular models. Manufacturers like APM Automotive are reporting big jumps in profits and others, such as MBM Resources Berhad, have seen more than a doubling of their sales volume as Malaysian assemblers rush to fulfill last year’s orders.
But here in Malaysia, the future is very much based around the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) for now. Local players do not see there being any real switch from ICE to EV in the next five to ten years. This is due to a lack of infrastructure, such as charging stations, and of course battery systems maintenance know-how.
Currently, despite government initiatives, Malaysian assemblers are still very focused on ICE-powered vehicles. Last year saw an increase of sales for EV models totalling a mere 2631, which is not a lot. There is probably a number of reasons why this is the case, but one of the prime causes is the cost. Malaysians are used to buying national cars at prices below RM50,000 (USD11,000) whereas the pricing of even the cheapest EVs in the market from the likes of Geely and BYD are more than double that, and don’t get me started on the lack of charging stations…
Then there is also the small fact that about 50% of the Malaysian market ‘belongs’ to Toyota either directly or via their affiliates and partners like UMW, which owns two plants in the country that pump out cars for Malaysia and the region. Toyota to-date has been a laggard on EV production as they remain unconvinced that EV is the only future of personal transportation, at least not for about ten years in Malaysia.
Sime Darby, another Malaysian auto distributor with luxury brands, like Land Rover, Porsche, BMW, Jaguar, and also mass brands, like Ford and Hyundai, in their stable is trying to position themselves to be a leader in the EV market as they bring in BYD. The trouble is their manufacturing plant, Inokom Corp, only has a capacity of 38,000 units per year, but only managed 28,000 last year.
Local heavyweights Proton and Perodua are still only at the research and development phase for their introduction of EVs and until they do get it together, the government will maintain a minimum RM100,000 price for any imported EV—well, at least until 2025 when it is hoped that Malaysia can start to become a regional hub for NxGVs or next-generation vehicles as they are known locally.
