MITI wants Proton and Perodua to expedite national EV

It seems that after attending Mercedes-Benz Malaysia's launch of their locally assembled EV, MITI minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz can't wait to see a national electric vehicle - which is why he has pulled Perodua and Proton aside to discuss the expedition of a national EV.

According to Bernama's report, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) is in talks with local vehicle manufacturers Proton and Perodua, to accelerate the production of national electric vehicles so that Malaysians can have the option to purchase an affordable electric vehicle.

Tengku Zafrul also emphasized at the same time that the current import permit (AP) guidelines have been eased to provide flexibility on the maximum quantity of fully assembled vehicles (CBU), for the pre-assembly market research (Market Research Pre-Assembly - MRA) sector. 

MRA vehicles are essentially study vehicles, so local assembly companies can better assess new market needs for the EV segment before starting production.

"This measure is expected to help give the people more EV options," he said at the Dewan Rakyat recently.

It seems that MITI can't wait to flood the market with EVs, as Norazman Ayub, Deputy Secretary General of MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), also stated last week that the ministry is 'encouraging' more car companies to bring in more affordable EV models into the country, and that will be made available later this year.

The Malaysian government will also push to expand the EV charging infrastructure network to at least 10,000 charging stations by 2025. They are looking at getting around RM20 billion worth of investments to strengthen the Malaysia EV ecosystem by 2025 and RM40 billion by the year 2030.