The push to drive electric vehicle (EV) adoption forward in Malaysia may be picking up momentum, but more can be done to ensure that it expands beyond that currently, the going-green camp points out. One of the key elements stumping EV take-up is that of the price of fuel – as long as it remains cheap, consumers are likely to stick with internal combustion engine (ICE) options instead of making the switch.
That’s the viewpoint of Gentari deputy CEO and chief green mobility officer Shah Yang Razalli, who said that the country’s fuel subsidy policy hampers its directional steer towards more EV use, as The Edge reports.
He said that while the import tax and excise duty exemption on completely built-up (CBU) EVs provided by the government was a positive move, Malaysia’s ongoing fuel subsidy is contradictory to its EV push, resulting in EVs being 20% more expensive to own and operate than ICE equivalents here.
“When we look at the fundamental driver of EV adoption, we can’t help but talk about total cost of ownership parity or TCO parity. In simple terms, is it cheaper to buy and operate an EV throughout its lifetime compared to an equivalent ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle?” he said at the Energy Transition Conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
He said that what reduces the EV-to-ICE cost parity are not just financial incentives in the form of outright purchase subsidies as well as additional incentives such as free public charging, parking or tolls, but also through disincentivising the use of hydrocarbon-based fuels through the introduction of fuel taxes or carbon taxes.
“The parity that we see [in Norway] is [EVs are] about 30% [cheaper than ICE equivalents]. For countries with good sustainable EV adoption, we see about 20% to 30% [parity in favour of EVs] to be the right amount,” he noted.
Looking at regional examples of countries that have attained price parity, Shah said beyond tax exemptions, these countries also offered subsidies in terms of reducing the outright purchase price of EVs, as well as disincentivising the use of fuel for ICE vehicles.
“Note that none of these countries, like India and Thailand, had fuel subsidies to begin with. But they have instituted some sort of duty or tax or, in some cases, carbon tax on the use of fuel for ICE,” he said.
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Conflict of interest, EV has a headstart of huge tax offset, ice cars are paying full tax but enjoying petrol subsidy, that’s fair, don’t forget the EV batts end of life disposal is another big ticket investment. You cannot have best of both. Gentari…….life is about balance
Im subsidized RON95. Ape malu bossku?
Anwar has no choice but to maintain subsidies for RON97 as well or else even the M40s will vote against him along with the B40s. But can we continue to afford subsidies for both segments? Only time will tell and his time as PM is ticking down fast.
Foreign-registered vehicles (both Singaporean and Thai) caught using subsidised fuel have repeatedly gone viral over the past few months. By law, cars bearing non-Malaysian registrations are only allowed to use RON97 (which is unsubsidised) in the country, and not RON95.
https://paultan.org/2023/02/16/unsubsidised-fuel-perlis/
Then what do you want? Close the land borders again like under C19 MCO? That will be suicidal for Msia. The amount we loss to them is dwarfed by the economic benefits they bring to us.
In actual, we lose even more via subsidising RON97 for local users compared to Sporeans pumping RON95.
If U go check those words, basically just bulat2 copy &paste from PT link above. I think that dude just trying to say RON97 is unsubsidized
Crude oil petrol goes up & down weekly and ‘unsubsidised’ RON97 has never moved a cent for the past 8 months, is not a subsidy? Tuu lah otak PH.
Check the 4th paragraph of PT’s article at https://paultan.org/2023/02/16/unsubsidised-fuel-perlis/
The 2nd sentence was clearly written as, “By law, cars bearing non-Malaysian registrations are only allowed to use RON97 (which is unsubsidised) in the country, and not RON95.”
If there is a dispute on whether the statement on the unsubsidised status of RON97 is correct or not, PT needs to clear it up.
As above
Come 2024…once T20 dont have fuel subsidies..more will buy Evs.
B40,M40 will continue with ice cars.
I got no time to think about the next charging time n station.Just jump into my Myvi..no worries of charging infra availability n Ev battery shelf life.Plenty of Petronas,Shell stations.
Will PH Gomen carry out that plan? I doubt it as after the last elections they need the M40 & T20 votes more than ever to remain in power. If they dared cross the T20s the retribution will be far more reaching than just their votes.
Maybe this is why they keep the free EV roadtax policy, just to please these particular group of people.
PH gomen is a gomen for the few. Basically tyranny of the minority.
PN janji minyak RM1.20
M40, B40 pasti undi PN
Look who’s poking
Actually what government is doing is quite sneakily forces rich people to adopt then later when they charge at home it is going to be more expensive also since their use are likely not subsidies and if they ever chooses to go back to ICE cars then government makes further profit.
The choice to compare Thailand & India with Malaysia is a poor one since both of them are not oil producer unlike Petronas.
It’s not like cancelling fuel subsidy will improve sales of EV, you have to think about infrastructure like EV charging point, accessibility and more. Also, the lack of enthusiasm and slow EV adoption by local car manufacturer (P1, P2) will also hamper the nation EV aspiration and push more people to get ICE vehicle. Furthermore, the tax structure of EV is ridiculous and need to be amended to make EV a viable choice for customers.
What a nincompoop talking here. How many people can afford EV in this country? You talk when you can find a RM35K EV and enough chargers on the road. Not everyone’s job sitting in the office talking male chicken. Some jobs require travelling hundreds of KM a day.
Anwar menang, subsidi hapus
Anwar menang, investment lari
While the message is right, it’s the wrong messenger delivering it.
Mamat ini cakap mcm EV sekeping dua kupang aje. Let the change take place gradually and when your charger count is adequate, of course the take on EV will increase. Business is of course is full of risk, kalau nak tongkat aje, susahlar.
settle charging convenience for consumers, make EVs more affordable instead of artificially bloating the EV price for the sake of saving proton and perodua. Planned future greener electric source. subsidize electric power source instead of fossil fuel.
Just make a 20 year plan
This seems a quite dangerous comment and shows lack of systemic thinking. EVs exist predominantly to help mitigating the effects of CO2 induced climate change. EVs in Malaysia have no significant CO2 benefit over ICE , because of the high carbon intensity of our Malaysian power grid until the end of this decade. Moreover, EVs in Malaysia run on Indonesian coal instead of indigenous fuel and do not help the Malaysian economy.
Good that you pointed out these.
If the EV is cheap I also would love to own one. Bare in mind not everyone can afford to buy EVs with it’s current price tag of > 100k.
Stop whining and tell your beloved shareholder the gomen of mesia to allow cheap EVs to be sold here
Gentari seems to have forgotten to ask about locally manufactured EVs.
https://paultan.org/2019/07/17/electric-vehicles-not-for-us-hybrids-first-perodua/
https://paultan.org/2012/09/28/proton-electric-car-coming-in-2014-parliament-told/
https://paultan.org/2015/05/29/proton-electric-car-prototype-stage/
https://paultan.org/2022/04/13/proton-to-make-high-tech-cars-electric-vehicles-and-expand-exports-with-ahtv-tg-malim-plans-ceo-dr-li/
EV is still very expensive from Japan manufacture, hybrid is not worth cost using 2 power system. What will be the cost to change 40kWh or 70kWh battery after 8 years when warranty already expired, how much can get after 8 year when want to sell EV because the 8 years battery warranty has expired?
blowing out someone else’s candle won’t make yours shine any better.
must an oil producing country deprive its citizen of affordable fuel to push for EV adoption?
Even without the subsidy, our fuel is still cheaper than our neighbours.
Cheaper than Brunei? LOL
The EVs in the market now is still minimum a RM100k, plus plenty of infra problem and B40 living in rumah pangsa. Many people are still relying on second hand cars.
What’s this fellow smoking? comparing us with Norway??
How come this fella can be CEO? Telling the Gov to make ICE ownership more expensive so EV’s become more financially viable?
I think this guy only hangs around rich people and have never known about kais pagi makan pagi, kais petang abuk pon tarak.
all these sohai talk like god and saint…ev here ev there…all are just business la …reduce carbon footprint only an excuse la…
selfish B
Barking up the wrong tree.
The problem is expensive EVs and the infrastructure not accessible to many car owners (namely high-rise dwellers).
Expensive charging is a non-issue.
This so called CEO sees things from kaleidoscope. So colourful but so narrow.
To make sure the stability of Malaysia economy, there are a lot more than just GO GREEN to consider. The infrastructure, resources, social risk, politics, government’s policies…
We are not Norway, not even close. We have to write the strategy that is suitable for Malaysia.
If stop subsidized fuel, what our abam2 kat border gonna eat? Tarik extension cord over sungai golok sell electricity to Thailand?
Clearly, this idiot don’t have B40 friends who lives in flat and using 10+ old car just to to make enough money to live.
Idiot CEO.
Norway is a free education country, why not we learn this system from them first before talk about talk about their EV system?
They have 3x less people to share the same amount of wealth as we do.
Who can afford ev. T20. We normal people drive myvi only. The person is talking nonsense. Unless we get ev at rm20k
Petrol price is cheap here. Therefore, no plans to switch to EV as infrastructure for EV not ready in Malaysia too.
human being all hypocrite la….all talk cock and as if they are saint…..why want to force people to buy anything…give people option la…..bottomline all business are in for profit only….