EV drivers in Malaysia who balik kampung found that charging wasn’t an issue at all.
Today is the first working day after the long 2023 CNY holiday weekend, and it looks like most Malaysians who chose to drive their electric vehicles (EV) to return to their respective hometowns around the country (balik kampong) found that battery charging was NOT a big issue at all.
Meanwhile, we were monitoring the very active electric car owners Malaysian Facebook page over the long Chinese New Year 2023 break to see how new electric car owners in Malaysia were managing their battery charging as they took to the highways and also state roads around Malaysia.
Interestingly, there are now a few hundred (BYD and ORA Good Cat) new owners of Chinese made electric cars running around Klang Valley and most of them took their new high technology mobility machines back to their respective hometowns to show to their parents and relatives.
Good news is that nearly every single post we read stated that their smartphone charging App’s and Google maps worked like a charm and their battery charging experience was easy thanks to the quick and helpful advice from older electric car owners in Malaysia.
Yes, there were some issues along the way. The usual case of petrol and diesel car and also motorcycle users who were parked at battery charging bays and the handful of battery chargers that were not working at their best.
Well, it is improving and the network is expanding as you read this and our electric car expert, Datuk Sharol Halmi from MyEVOC has some points to share below.
“This is indeed welcome news, especially for prospective EV owners who are concerned about the annual balik kampung rush”.
However, we should not rest on our laurels and continue to push for further improvements such as:
1. Deploy more stalls/piles/connectors per highway location.
2. Expand RnR areas so that EV charging spots do not impinge on existing parking areas. This will reduce incidents of ICEing during busy periods.
3. Deploy more chargers going up north from KL, including the new West Coast Expressway, to encourage EV owners to take this alternative route north.
4. Deploy more chargers going towards the Peninsular East Coast. Today the route there is imbalanced where there are two 90+90 kW locations (Gambang and Paka) but only one 50 kW on the way back to KL.
In the short- to medium-term it probably makes more sense to deploy charging hubs near highway exits to work around highway regulation red tape and lack of power availability.
Multi-lane free flow toll collections will also help.
