Will other Pekema members do the same in the coming months?
Earlier this year in August, the Malaysia Automotive Robotics And IoT Institute (MARII) and Persatuan Pengimpot & Peniaga Kenderaan Melayu Malaysia (PEKEMA) signed a MoA for the development of a connected electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure and the establishment of an EV Centre of Excellence. Please take note, that this was just a signing ceremony and not a firm agreement.
To jump start this initiative Pekema member, Nizra Automobile has just installed an electric vehicle charger at its flagship showroom in Kuala Lumpur and has made a statement that it is open to any electric vehicle owner that needs a charge, for FREE at this moment.
At the signing of the abovementioned MoA, MARii and PEKEMA said that they will collaborate to set up 1,000 EV charging station (DC rapid chargers) around the country by 2025.
At the same time, both parties will co-develop connective applications that include e-payment, charger locators, battery management systems and service centre networks for the charging ecosystem.
Nizra, like some other Pekema members are already selling used electric vehicles imported in from England and also Japan.
These electric vehicles, with all their modern technology is sold without a firm manufacturers warranty and after sales and this is worrying as some owners of these EV’s in Europe and Japan have had issues with their electric vehicles from the battery system to the electric motor to software glitches.
Recently there have been a number of used Porsche Taycans (all are electric vehicles) being imported in by AP holders and sold to unsuspecting buyers thinking they will get full after sales and warranty from Porsche Malaysia. This is however not the case as these Taycans are used from England.
There have also been a handful of Honda e compact EV’s being imported in for sale. Honda Malaysia will not honour any recalls or after sales on this popular in Europe compact EV.
If we were to look closely at this above MoA signing. It is clear that used car importers or Approved Permit holders need to have EV chargers at their showrooms as they want to import in used EV’s to sell and charging will be need to test drive and show these cars to customers.
This time, because PEKEMA is involved, there exists more of a business plan to make this work. PEKAMA will probably use their APs to parallel import used electric vehicles to Malaysia from the UK, where electric vehicles are being heavily subsidised to meet climate goals.
They will probably develop an in-house payment system for use of their DC Fast Charging network. This ought to create a closed-loop for them to get customers in and keep them hooked.
We also need to to take note that the Malaysian EV charging network is behind Thailand and Singapore and Indonesia is fast catching up.
