Perodua might be using the BYD e2 facelift as the donor car for their first electric vehicle.
Things are changing in the Malaysian car market. Electric vehicles, while not the norm, are being promoted by the government by way of a temporary tax exempt status. While that has benefited the T20 and the upper middle class, we’re still not seeing electric vehicles come in below RM100,000, which is where the majority of Malaysian car shoppers spend their money. That price bracket is being reserved for the national carmakers, Proton and Perodua.
While Proton can lean on Geely tech to build their first electric vehicle, Perodua can’t really do the same with Daihatsu, who have been their technology partner from inception. Sure, Daihatsu have a couple of electric vehicle prototypes, but they just can’t price it right and so won’t put it in production. In fact, even Perodua’s Ativa hybrid technically does exist, but is only provided to certain customers as a ‘subscription’ to work around its high price.
So, it’s clear that Perodua can either lose this slice of the market to Proton or it can find a technology partner to help bring a sub-RM100,000 electric vehicle to market. We suggested before that it might be BYD and now that Sime Darby has completed its acquisition of UMW Holdings, it really is possible that a BYD-Perodua tie up is possible based on something like the Dolphin Mini. Now, another possible BYD model has come to out attention as a potential rebadge for Perodua – the BYD e2.
The BYD e2 has been in production since 2019 but was given a facelift in 2023. It’s a little longer and wider than the latest Perodua Myvi, but isn’t outside of Perodua’s comfort zone in terms of dimensions. It’s also a rather inexpensive vehicle, at least in China where it comes with a sticker price of just 89,800 yuan, or just under RM60,000. This new price was announced just last week in China as part of BYD’s new pricing strategy across the board and the e2 “Glory edition” is 12.6% cheaper than it was last year.
For such a low price, one might expect a small battery with a short range but that’s not exactly the case. It still comes with a 43.2kWh blade battery, which isn’t too far off the basic smart #1 Pro’s 47kWh battery capacity. This lends the BYD e2 a range of 405 km but you have to take that with a pinch of salt as it is measured on the CLTC driving cycle and not WLTP, which is closer to what’s reflected in the real world and about 20% shorter than typical CLTC ratings.
With a power output of 70kW and 180Nm of torque, it’s not exactly a rocket ship but Perodua isn’t in the business of making fast cars so it should be just fine.
