This Raya, how many EVs will be parts of the 2.2 million vehicles projected to be driving cross country?
The number of electric vehicles on Malaysian roads has steadily increased over the last three years and we can now safely say that there are tens of thousands of EVs registered locally. That being said, this is a statistically insignificant number of cars when compared to the number of vehicles sold overall per year and likely the number of vehicles that will be making the cross country exodus this coming Raya season.
Yesterday, PLUS briefed the media on their projected figures for the 2025 Aidilfitri exodus season. They expect that this year some 2.2 million vehicles will be on their roads, which include both the North-South Expressway (PLUS) as well as the East Coast Highway 2 (LPT2). These vehicles are expected to be on the roads between 24 January 2025 and 2 February 2025. The only real advice they gave was to follow the recommended travel time windows for each direction or else face up to 40% travel time than expected.
Our question though is how many of these 2.2 million vehicles on the road will be electric and if you have the option for either an ICE vehicle or an EV to Balik Kampung in, which would you choose? I’ve done four interstate EV drives in the last few years – KL to JB in a Volvo C40 (pre-brainlift), a smart #1 Premium, a BMW iX and a drive from KL to Penang in a Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV. While the Mercedes and BMW gave the best results with the least amount of range anxiety, I still had to worry about charging at my destination. I drove alone and gave myself ample time for charging.
During the festive season, I can foresee a number of additional challenges. First of all, there will be more vehicles overall on the road, meaning there will likely also be more electric vehicles on the road. This means that the limited number of public chargers on the highway will need to be shared, slowing down travel time. Now, instead of thinking about how many minutes you have to stop to charge, you need to also think about how many minutes the people in front of you are going to need at the charger if there’s a queue.
It also means that you have to think about the comfort of your family members in the vehicle, as the risk of being stranded on the highway is a possibility if planning is not done and luck isn’t on your side with regards to charging station availability. Finally, there’s also the problems at the destination to worry about. If you’re traveling to main cities, charging stations at your destination may not be a huge problem. However, if you’re going to ‘balik kampung’, it might be a LOT tougher to find a place to charge at your destination. This could affect your ability to use your vehicle at the destination, as you may need to ‘ration’ your remaining charge until the day you get back to a fast charger. Sure, you can charge via a 3-pin plug, but these have severe charge speed limitations.
It’ll be interesting to see how many EVs are going to be on the roads this Raya season. If you’re planning to do it, please share your plan and/or travel story with us. It’ll also be interesting if Touch n Go or PLUS has a way to track the number of EVs on the road during the Raya Exodus 2025 and if they can share that data with the public.
