An update on the MyKar electric vehicle project from Malaysian start-up company EV Innovations. Yesterday, the company signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the Malaysia Automotive, Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) regarding the homologation process of the project to make it ready for manufacturing.
The company, a subsidiary of local information and communication technology provider System Consultancy Services (SCS), also signed a MoA with Ingress Corporation to look into the manufacturing of parts. The signing ceremonies, which were held at the Sepang International Circuit, also saw the MyKar prototype being previewed through another working presentation.
The car, which is essentially a proof of concept vehicle, has been around for a while. It made its first public appearance at the Kuala Lumpur Engineering Science Fair in November 2019, and was last seen in a preview last September at the Putrajaya Airstrip.
Not much has changed with the exterior since then, with additional LED light strips and prominent MyKar badging at the rear of the car – along with two signal antennas on the upper section of the rear lid – being the most visible changes.
To recap, the exterior borrows the outline from the previous-gen Honda Jazz, with the doors and suspension taken directly from the donor car. The EV’s fibreglass composite bodyshell, which was built by DK Composites, sits on a ladder frame/tubular chassis fabricated by EV Innovations.
There are however mechanical revisions. When shown in September, the MyKar featured a 10 kWh capacity battery pack made up of 32 China Aviation Lithium Battery (CALB) lithium-ion phosphate (LiFePO4) cells, which offered an operating range of around 150 km and a charging time of about three hours.
The battery has since been upgraded to a 28.7 kWh unit, doubling the travel range to 300 km. Charging time is longer as a result, but not by much, at 4.3 hours to full at a charging rate of 6.6 kW. The inclusion of the higher capacity battery has also increased the kerb weight of the car from 900 kg to 1,016 kg.
The output remains as it was, at 24 kW (32 hp) and 30 kg/m (295 Nm), but the two 12 kW hub motors that drive the rear wheels have been reconfigured in terms of performance. Previously, the 10 kWh version had a maximum speed of 104 km/h and a 0-100 km/h time of 16.7 seconds. With the new setup, the top speed has gone up to 140 km/h, although that has been achieved at the expense of initial pull, with the 0-100 km/h time now lengthening to 18 seconds.
The MyKar’s side view camera system and dual LCD screen viewers inside the car as well as the roof-mounted solar panel strips – which charges a separate battery that powers the car’s solid-state AC system – is still to be seen, but attempts have been made to refine the presentation of the cabin. There’s a different GUI as a result of a new, smaller central screen, and the car now features remote networking and telemetry capability, courtesy of new onboard communications (hence the presence of the antennas).
The MyKar remains very much a showcase of the possibility of an EV being made locally for under RM50,000, but the company continues to say that it itself will not build such a vehicle.
At the event yesterday, SCS executive chairman Datuk Khalilur Rahman Ebrahim reiterated what he said last September, that EV Innovations wasn’t looking to develop the MyKar commercially but is merely carrying out research and development of the EV system and utilising the vehicle as a test bed to showcase the possibilities of the tech.
“SCS is not interested in selling a car. We won’t have a brand for it, and it’s never going to be called MyKar. We are selling the technology to those interested in making EVs,” he said. The company is hoping to attract an institutional strategic partner or an individual retail investor looking at going into electrification.
He added that such a project would need the engagement of many stakeholders, such as those making parts and battery management systems (BMS), and these areas would also need to be addressed. To this end, the company will be working together with MARii not just on homologation aspects of the EV but also the development of related technologies such as BMS, vehicle communications protocols and wireless charging tech for EVs.
Separately, the company also previewed a Proton Arena that it had converted into an EV. The project, which saw the ICE and transmission components being replaced with an electric powertrain, doesn’t just showcase the possibilities of EV conversions (which are currently not legal).
The company said that the study also provides a view of how electrification can provide a more economical – and lighter – alternative in manufacturing a mass-produced car, utilising deletive manufacturing in this case to highlight the fact.
GALLERY: EV Innovations MyKar, Putrajaya preview 2020
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Hello..1st April is tomorrow not today.
City urban EV under RM50k + travel range 300km. why not?
why not? with 50k i can get a myvi which is a real car and i can get more travel range and i wont get overtake by lorry cause i have more then triple the horsepower then that thing
Just remove the tax and excise duty a civic can be around 60k also…
My best guest that this will remain a test car for a long time………
Wuiling Mini EV
What is the point of this!? Shouldn’t the government provided incentives to established car makers to invest EV manufacturing in Malaysia!? No manufacturer will partner this small fry company la. what expertise do they have (other than having the proper connections)
Too bad EV conversions are currently not legal in bolehland. It could give a new lease of life to an old car.
RM50K can get you a very decent car. Who wants to get a car that uses handphone holder bought from Mr DIY to hold the tablet and Dahua CCTV?
It seems as if the other fellow commentators didn’t real the article properly. This is R&D – it is not a full blown EV startup and the company said they had no intentions of building a vehicle. While I am against protectionist policies, I am all for Malaysian R&D!
We should been encouraging high tech R&D like this if Malaysia wants to get on the level of high income developing nations. Malaysia should be a count where we come up/innovate/improve technology, not simply build other countries’s hand me downs like Proton and Perodua
True… ignore this idiotic people who cant even read the article properly
Sadly, people only look at results, including me. It’s considered useless if this R&D continues forever without any new breakthroughs or results that can actually benefits the rakyats. Hope they really come out with a feasible product for sale anytime soon. I honestly will look forward for this 60k car if it can be a reality.
Electric car use electricity, electricity use fossil fuel, so…anybody has done some calculation how much actually the effect on environment can be saved?
Not if the source come from green energy. at least electric car produce zero carbon footprint. the only thing that need improvement is our electric source.
why not use a solar power (free energy)? still in R&D right? build and test it..
April fools joke?
After flying car, is this another scam in the making?
Study probably better than seriously considering.
wow, Yugo electric vehicle.
Can not even produce hybrid car, now want to produce EV? Something that buy with money is not considered as capability to produce one.
A fully electric car is considerably easier to make compared to hybrid.
China cars look much better than this and much cheaper too.Don’t waste money on the project if can’t design the car properly.
You should do a little more reading. It’s R&D. They don’t plan to sell it. It’s learning of the technology.
what under 50k? do they know how many hundreds of millions going into development of the donor’s car that Jazz?
projects like this dont work for 2 reason:
1. theres no economic sense developing the EV and priced it at under 50k
2. the technology developed by them has not reach to the maturity in term of both technical advancement, and readiness
that EQS mercedes had about 350 sensors at the operation of the car. This cut and paste job wont work
and why madani still helming MARii? not going anywhere MARii. similar to aishah, both had to go
Does this company hold any patents for this electric car technology?
Last time, I thought Proton already have their own electric car i.e. converted from current model. What happened to that?
The antennas are our real-time mesh communication local network that transmits high-bandwidth video content wirelessly peer-to-peer. We placed WiFi antennas & nodes strategically across SIC track, to perform real-time evaluation delivering extended range with high-availability. Applications range from man to machine to buildings in Smart Cities.
My most optimistic comments: It’s ugly
basically the company is using gov R&D grant to sell EV patent to car manufacturers. remainder of the grant’s money will go to the director’s pocket. ive seen enough.
let not it be just another wet dreams
The Name and Appearance already low class and low quality.
why buy ev car when we already have flying car?
…we do have national flying car already right?
This is the result of wasting time and money.
The beginning of the end for oil cartel. RIP.
Looks so legit…outdated…please go learn the design from first world country…jangan asyik cakap pasal syukur apa yg ade…syukur that and this tapi takde improvement in anything…ape yg nk syukur…smpi poroton kena china yang save dari bankruptcy….please do not repeat the same mistake…
Over 30 years since Malaysia first manufactured its own cars. And here we are looking at something that looks like built by some college students. What were they benchmark to? Check at Vinfast and Hong Kong Byton see how far they have gone ahead.
They should do bulk purchase shell from perodua or proton and then put in their knowledge, tech and brand, maybe that can sell below 35k after EV tax rebate if there is one.
if they succeed they can even sell back to perodua as rebadge. Like AMG to Mercedes.
Tf is this. Malaysia stop embarrassing yourself. Ask this question in 3 months again and nobody would know what happened
I gotta feeling this is just the usual “tarzan-macho sembang-kemcang”, and later becoming pisang goreng lemau……..
stick brand a Wuling Mini EV better and faster la wei …
tak tau malu ke nie?
this for me looks like a Chinese electric car conversion kit sitting in an older Hinda Jazz. good effort but heap sources. this is not proper EV R&D.
Can it be any uglier?
Try collaborate with other eV company with is more success in R&D, yes more cost but lest time to R&D. But if just plan for local it good. Maybe can decrease some not important part for less cost not for safety lol. If can try with Tesla Inc. I think they move advance in eV.
Finally, Malaysia’s automotive is starting on EV, it may look like one small step but I believe it can be one giant leap for the industry, Kudos. Glad to the some are optimism but damn there’s alot of bashers too. Guys, I agree this may seem a bit overwhelming but we gotta start somewhere somehow. Maybe this lil project car is just for a show but it certainly open some eyes of potential investors and potential technical partners. Let’s see what we are capable of instead of crapping all of it after all EV is not something new, its been around in other parts of the world for quite some time now. Also, so what if we need to copy & paste from other successful EVs 1st to get rolling. Perodua has been around for 29 years yet they’re still selling rebadged Toyota/Daihatsu cars to this day.
Well done SCS ! Keep it up with innovating