Back in 2021, Malaysia revealed its plan to have 10,000 electric vehicle (EV) public charging stations in place across the country by 2025, consisting of 9,000 alternating current (AC) chargers and 1,000 direct current (DC) fast chargers as outlined under the Low Carbon Mobility Blueprint (LCMB) 2021-2030.
However, with a year to go before the target date, the number of public charging points in operation currently stands at 2,020, as indicated by the latest listing of these on PlanMalaysia’s national electric vehicle charging network dashboard, otherwise known as MEVnet.
While the latest numbers are a progress from the 1,430 chargers that were up and running in November last year, with nearly 600 new ones coming about in the past two months, the 10k target looks like it’s out of reach. Getting 8,000 charging points in place by then seems a tall order.
The ministry of investment, trade and industry (MITI) seems to be cognisant of this, saying it will review the target. According to its minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, the present tally is far from the initial target outlined under blueprint.
He said that while government is still maintaining the initial target, he and his cabinet colleagues will re-examine whether the target can be achieved or not, Bernama reports.
“It seems that the target is quite aggressive because there are many issues that we need to address and it involves many processes and agencies such as the approval process and agencies such as the energy commission, local authorities, and other parties,” he said.
He also explained that the charging station preparation procedures need to be streamlined because there were complaints from companies providing EV charging stations. “Among the complaints received is about the approval period for setting up a charging station taking a long time. What we need to focus more is how to make it more seamless and faster to get the approval,” he added.
In July last year, Zafrul had indicated that the government was looking to enable charge point operators (CPOs) to secure approvals for installation in far quicker fashion by removing the red tape and bureaucracy (approval from local councils, land owners etc), with the aim being to reduce time needed for the whole process to around three months.
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So you guys syok sendiri and set unrealistic targets. Then wake up one day and decide, “let’s revise this”. And you guys are supposed to be policymakers of the country. You can’t even do proper planning and forecasting. Project Management 101 lah… Your revised numbers will also be syok sendiri.
So it’s either revise number or moving timeline game now? And the ppl get played by you all and suffer the consequences. Soon there gonna be scene of fighting for charging? Approval slow and not clear, condo management also super confuse and don’t allow installation of wall charger, make better policy and review end to end process please.
Other countries also revising their “all sales will be EV by year 20xx” goals. As long as one country (China) has a monopoly on components needed for battery production, the EV goal is unrealistic. At least we are behind on this particular adoption curve, so losses can be minimized.
rather than supporting this call, a few entities saw this as a lucrative opportunity to make more money from the implementer. how can you reach this target with this type of mindset?