While Perodua is in talks to build a local EV soon, Pakistan already built one
The Pakistan National Institute of Electronics (NIE), part of the Ministry of Science and Technology, has made a big achievement, meaning that another country many Malaysians regularly look down on and see as inferior to us, has beaten us to a very important milestone achievement… Again.
Pakistan has turned a regular 800cc fuel car into an electric vehicle (EV). They showed off this cool change at an event at Allama Iqbal Open University in Pakistan recently. The new electric car has a 10-kilowatt motor that runs on a battery, which is apparently much better for the environment.
Moreover, while Pakistan took action, we here in Malaysia waited for our national car brands to release a full electric car for years now and still have not seen any quantifiable progress even after all this time. Well, Malaysia may have been an advanced nation at one point, but it looks like we aren’t so advanced anymore.
Instead, we have multiple laws and legislations in place to force other manufacturers (non-local brands) to sell their EVs here at higher prices than necessary since it is impossible for other brands to sell electric cars here below a certain price point. What is the point of this when we likely won’t have one for another decade?
What’s more, the average Malaysia still does not have many options as far as electric cars go and the ones we do have miss out on many features more expensive EVs have because the manufacturer is trying to keep the price as low as possible so the only alternative is a local EV but we don’t have one yet.
On top of that, we do not yet have the infrastructure in place here in Malaysia to accommodate widespread EV adoption as the majority of chargers in Malaysia are located around the Klang Valley and the rest are spread very far apart. This is the main reason most Malaysians still choose a petrol or diesel engine car for now.
So there you have it, while we in Malaysia waste decades arguing and debating in Parliament, other countries are out there actually doing things. After all, actions speak louder than words, yet here in Malaysia, all we have been doing since we gained independence is talk, except for one very short period in time.
What do you guys think? Will Malaysia actually achieve more from college students doing projects in 10 years than the government wasting 50 years debating will? I think so and history seems to agree with me as well given how history has proved me right multiple times.
