Data.gov.my Finally Gets Updated, Reveals Slowed EV Adoption Pace. Why?

Still remember the data.gov.my? The site developed in the name of transparency and makes data collected from various government departments public? Well it's FINALLY been updated, and we now have the latest data from the Road Transport Department (JPJ) which paints the real picture on vehicle sales in the country.

FIrst thing to look at was the difference in the numbers published by the Malaysia Automotive Association (MAA) recently. The association’s latest figures indicated an 18% decline in vehicle sales from 71,052 in March to 57,991 in April 2024. This does not tally with the number pulled off JPJ’s data set, which shows 79,827 vehicles sold in March and 67,662 in April this year.

Why you might ask? Simply put, MAA only published numbers from member brands registered under them, which isn’t everyone - one brand not registered with MAA is Tesla. JPJ’s data, on the other hand, covers the entire sales volume of all brands selling in the country - ‘recond’ or parallel (grey) imports included..

Going through the data, we noticed that there has been some effort placed into getting data more properly represented this time around. If you remembered the initial dashboard, BYD’s Atto 3 was wrongly placed under the Buick brand.

Overall now, vehicle sale numbers do look promising, with the usual suspects leading the show. Surprisingly, a newcomer in the list would be Chery, which just reentered the market last year and now places sixth on the car brand list ahead of Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Nissan. In the first quarter of this year alone, Chery shifted 4,795 units of its Omoda 5 crossover SUV.

Now, although Mitsubishi is seventh in the car sales leaderboard, this might not be the case anymore moving forward when the government's diesel subsidy rationalisation starts. This is due to the fact that Mitsubishi only has two models in its portfolio, the Xpander and Triton, and buyers would surely not opt for diesel-powered vehicles like the latter pick-up truck model mentioned once diesel prices are unsubsidised.

Other brands who are also highly dependent on diesel truck sales in Malaysia are Ford and Isuzu. It would be interesting to see if these legacy brands will move to expand their offerings with different powerplant options in the mix too.

On the premium side of things, Mercedes-Benz is still trailing BMW in terms of vehicle sales. However, the sales trend does indicate EV adoption that was rampant last year especially for BMW where it sold 1,467 units of the iX, has slowed down. In April 2024 only 100 units were sold. Instead, the highest mover for BMW in the EV space is the i7 with 121 units sold. Whereas for Mercedes, its best seller in quarter 1 2024 is the EQE with 68 units sold.

As for the more affordable EVs, BYD sales still look promising after having sold 1,118 Atto 3 crossovers in just Q1 as compared to 3,157 in the entire 2023. The seemingly slow uptake on EVs can be attributed to several factors, one being the slow movement in EV Charging station roll out of late due to more and more regulatory burdens placed on charge point operators (CPO) and the never ending delay in announcement of the new EV road tax structure.

Furthermore, we are still unable to really break down the numbers from other volume sellers like Volvo, Chery and others since both EV and ICE share the same platform resulting in JPJ having bundled the sales numbers together instead of keeping it separate on the data.gov.my site.

Having said that, we do appreciate the effort in rectifying errors made before and hope the data can be made more detailed, like separating vehicle sales that were coming from recond sellers for instance, as now all is presented as one.