UN R138 AVAS regulation on EV pedestrian warning to be mandatory in Malaysia from January 2026, says JPJ

Due to their silent nature, electric vehicles have to provide an idea of their presence to people around them at low speeds beyond just through visual means, which is why you’ll find them emitting a sonic signature of some sort.

Paramount for pedestrian safety, it needs to be audible, and discernible enough from other ambient noises to let someone know that a quiet moving mass is close about. How this artificial tone is achieved and how it shapes up, well, varies from maker to maker, but most of the sonics usually have a common signature to them within the selected octave bands.

Sometimes, certain carmakers go about it differently, and in some cases, not very favourably. Much has been made of the sound projected by the Proton eMas 7, with the ice cream truck soundtrack not finding many fans, our own Hafriz Shah included.

Always running at any point when the vehicle is on the move below 30 km/h, the safety feature can’t be turned off, but such has the response been to it that the automaker says it is currently working to give eMas 7 customers options for the pedestrian warning audio, including turning the warning off.

Opting for a new audible alert is fine, but the latter is a questionable move, because no one really needs a silent slab of moving metal to be completely silent all the time, if pedestrian safety is of any real interest, that is.

In fact, I thought that couldn’t be done, but as Hafriz pointed out recently, Malaysia actually has no regulations in place that makes the use of an acoustic vehicle alert system (AVAS), as it’s called, mandatory.

Until Jan 1, 2026, that is. That’s when all new electric vehicles sold in Malaysia will have to comply to the UN ECE R138 regulation, making the provision and utilisation of AVAS a compulsory requirement. This was confirmed in a letter filed by the road transport department (JPJ) to the Malaysian Automotive Association back in 2023, as sighted by this publication.

Back in August that year, the association had written in to JPJ to propose that UN R138 be made mandatory, with its inclusion being threaded into part of the vehicle type approval (VTA) process.

On December 8 that year, the department replied to the association that, having looked into the matter, a decision had been made to apply the R138 regulation as part of the VTA certification requirements, with AVAS becoming mandatory for all new battery EV and fuel cell EV (FCEV) models at the start of 2026.

The regulation – in its R138.00 guise – will apply to Category M and N vehicles of such types, which essentially covers everything with more than two wheels, in this case passenger cars (M1), buses (M2/M3) and goods vehicles (N1 light and N2/M3 heavy lorries).

When it comes into effect, an EV – passenger or commercial -will need to always present an audible alert at speeds of up to 20 km/h. You’ll have noticed that the eMas 7 keeps the ice-cream sonics running up to 30 km/h, as does the Leapmotor C10, with its loud-pitched mechanical drone.

The higher crossover speed may be due to wanting to encompass different market requirements (for example, the US and its FMVSS 141) for easier system standardisation.

As for the latter, that loudness may be answered by China’s use of its own GB/T 37153-2018 regulation, which is based on UN R138, but with +2 dB higher minimum sound level specification.

Incidentally, the GB/T outline prohibits AVAS from being completely deactivated, with only pausing of the system allowed (the system resumes operation once the vehicle ‘restarts’).

By and large, this is acceptably common practice, but some automakers have provided a “kill switch” where there are no laws present mandating AVAS use. For example, BYD’s AVAS also plays some kind of musical tune, but this was not an issue among owners here as the solution was to disable it, with an OTA update then offering a ‘permanent off’ switch.

Curiously, the contention over sonics in both tone and loudness seems to be limited to Chinese EVs. Most European EVs have AVAS, but they are fairly quiet and usually not audible from inside the car. The same goes for Japanese makes, even on older hybrids which will run with the engine off at city speeds.

With AVAS becoming mandatory with the inclusion of R138 into the local UN ECE regulation pool for vehicle certification, it’ll be interesting to see whether how many OS will offer the feature to permanently deactivate the warning system. Having it as a prerequisite in a car sold here is one thing, but it hasn’t been made clear if deactivating it completely all the time is unlawful.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think AVAS is a must, or is it all sonic hogwash? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

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