The last half of 2024 has seen frantic activity by Charge-point Operators (CPOs) to roll out chargers nationwide. The influx of Chinese-made EVs and Proton’s entry into the EV market is going to shape 2025 to be a rather exciting year.
That said, after clocking close to 10,000 electric kilometers, the Malaysian charging infrastructure still needs work. For all the politics and “noise”, there’s still no urgency on highway operators like PLUS to work with TNB to lay new or upgraded grid connectivity.
The app ecosystem seems to have grown a bit with some “roaming” or “partner access” with so that you can reduce the number of apps required but reliability needs improvement. This is probably still a turn-off to potential adopters as it can be fairly inconvenient and complicated for new users.
I stand by my statement that toilets and chargers go hand-in-hand like a horse and carriage. Yes, it’s an anachronistic example but unlike refueling, charging should be a parallel activity. Need a stretch and snack? Charge while doing so. Had too much coffee to keep you awake on the road, toilet breaks are ideal charging stops and 10-15 minutes per stop is all that is needed to get to your destination. Of course, this calls for more chargers at all stops if possible so that charging can be distributed and allow users to be flexible, reducing congestion, especially during festive periods.
The next 8 weeks, with Christmas, New Year and the Chinese New Year holidays coming up would be a crucial test of this charging infrastructure as over 15,000 EVs were sold so far in 2024 with only 3,300 (out of 2025’s 10,000 target) charge points available. As a dashboard target, it seems far off but the other critical metric that no one shows is the distribution. Putting up 5,000 points in Klang Valley does wonders to the target but is irrelevant from a national standpoint.
Sources:
Charge points via MEV dashboard https://www.planmalaysia.gov.my/mevnet/
Vehicles registrations: https://data.gov.my/dashboard/vehicle-registrations
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