1,246 EV Chargers Up Now, 10,000 By 2025 A Pipe Dream?

Following the National Automotive Policy, or NAP 2020, and the Low Carbon Mobility Blueprint outline, the Government's direction for the time being is in the development of the nation's EV industry. This is meant to attract EV investments and meet the national target of 15% total industry volume (TIV) for EV and hybrid by 2030, and 38% TIV by 2040.

Fueling this goal would be the promise of a ramped up charging infrastructure with 10,000 public charging stations operational by 2025. However, recent data shared during the EVM Asia 2023 expo, the growth for which rate does somehow not look promising.

According to data presented by the National EV Charging Dashboard, which isn’t accessible to the public yet, there are a total of 1,246 public EV chargers nationwide presently. Of this, 1,007 are AC types while 239 are DC fast-chargers. Furthermore, the data also indicates that 500 of these chargers are located in in-door facilities while 746 are outdoors. Now this total number is roughly about 12% from the 10,000 target set.

For comparison, let's take a look at the data set shared by MGTC back in Dec 2022 showing a total of 900 public EV chargers operational - 791 AC and 109 DC. Based on these numbers, we can clearly see that in the last nine (9) months, the number of new EV chargers erected was a mere 346 (107 AC and 130 AC).

Given the 10,000 EV Charger target is still in play, we are basically still short of 8,754 EV chargers that have to be set up by 2025. This means CPOs would have to ramp things up  and set up new EV chargers at a rate of about 324 units monthly. Would this be possible? In a recent announcement by the folks at Gentari, one of the nation’s biggest CPOs, it will have a total of 400 EV chargers online by end 2023, but this is still a far cry from the government’s target.

We also shouldn’t forget that one of the key factors leading to the slow movement in EV charging facilities development is the uncertainty factor with regards to the still absent finalised guideline from PLANMalaysia. This stems from Bomba’s disapproval of the placement of EV chargers, especially in underground and multi-storey parking lots. Therefore, as much as we are in support of the target goal set by the government for the greater growth of the EV industry, we are also sceptical if this goal could even meet 50% success.

What are your thoughts on this matter, do drop us a comment as we’d love to hear more about it from your perspective…