Is the electric car excitement slowing down or not?
In the past year we have been sharing news of impressive booking numbers for nearly all new electric car launches in Malaysia. Only a couple of new electric cars have not ‘taken off’ like their rivals.
The Neta V and KIA Niro EV have seen very very low bookings and even with very attractive pricing for the Neta V at RM99k and the high technology and build quality of the Niro EV at RM255k has not managed to tickle Malaysians to put down a booking fee.
Meanwhile, the premium electric cars who initially saw bookings of 1,000 units and more from launch have seen growing cancellations for the following reasons.
- Long waiting time for stocks to arrive from the factory
- Rival product launched at lower selling prices
- Rival product arrives with longer driving range and higher in cabin technology at lower or similar price point.
For example, when Hyundai Sime Darby launched the multi award winning Hyundai IONIQ 5, its bookings went past 1,000 buyers and with slow delivery from the factory due to very high global demand, many buyers switched their attention to the very environmentally built KIA EV6 GT.
Then as deliveries of the EV6 GT were also delayed due to high global demand, their bookings also started falling.
Then TESLA officially arrived in Malaysia and with an unbeatable price point this caused a huge stir with European electric vehicles on sale in Malaysia.
Former very popular EV brands from Europe started seeing a drop in demand and booking cancellations. Some have lost almost 50 percent of the initial bookings.
Now, let us not forget the effect of BYD in all this commotion. The Atto3 took away some orders from lower priced European and Chinese made rivals and when the BYD Dolphin arrived at RM124k, the market pitched hard in their favor with its impressive driving range and great technology.
In the premium EV space, the big European brands have started giving discounts as much as RM115,000. Yes! You can buy a European EV with a hefty 20 percent discount right now and by early 2024 this might shift a little more.
Meanwhile, this move has ‘forced the hand’ of immediate European rivals to start pushing their showrooms to offer discounts and the domino effect has only just started.
In the coming few weeks the BYD Seal arrives in Malaysia and its features and selling prices will scare even TESLA to start offering freebies and more and top tier rivals will need to rethink their price position to keep clearing stocks sitting in showrooms.
