In the first part of our interview with Stellantis ASEAN MD Isaac Yeo, the company’s regional chief declared Leapmotor as its main brand for Malaysia in the immediate future. Stellantis, and PSA before this, is synonymous with Peugeot, but the French brand will be taking a back seat for the time being, making way for Chinese brand Leapmotor to spearhead the search for volume.
You can read more about the logic of scaling back Peugeot here, but Yeo made it very clear to us that Leapmotor will be Stellantis’ top striker for now, the player to ‘lead the line’ and get the goals that will keep the company in the game (all football terms are the author’s own).
Work is already underway to prepare Stellantis’ Gurun plant – fully acquired from Naza in late 2021 – for semi-knocked down (SKD) Leapmotor production, which will start with the C10 electric SUV by the end of this year. The first stage is an initial investment of five million euros (RM24.5 million) in the 60,000-unit capacity plant, and the next stage will be deeper localisation and KD assembly for the second model, the smaller B10.
Yeo said that Stellantis is looking at 2,400 units of each model, which translates to 200 units per model, per month, for a brand volume of 400 units per month. That’s a huge jump from what Leapmotor is doing now (not in the top 20 EVs list as of July, but ninth last month with 66 units following an update cum price cut in June), so what’s behind this optimistic projection?
The reason why Malaysia’s EV market is a vibrant free-for-all now, where brands from Proton to Xpeng are doing good business importing EVs from China is due to tax-free incentives given to CBU imported EVs, but this tax break will end along with 2025. This means that barring a last-minute extension by the government, the price of CBU EVs will rise in 2026. Then, they won’t look so good value next to ICE-powered rivals.
And CKD EVs. The only way for carmakers to continue to enjoy tax breaks is to locally assemble their EVs, and the Leapmotor C10 will be among a small group of battery-powered vehicles that will be assembled here. The future sub-RM100k CKD market will have Perodua’s homegrown EV, the TQ Wuling Bingo, Dongfeng Box (potentially) and the Proton eMas 5.
The latter will roll off Proton’s new EV factory that will also churn out the current EV sales champ eMas 7. There’s also fellow SUV Chery Omoda E5. One would imagine global EV sales leader and Proton eMas’ biggest rival, BYD, complying with the tax-free requirement, but the pool will surely be much smaller than today.
“That’s where my advantage comes in. I’m one of the few OEMs who have a plant in Malaysia. If today I sell at RM125k, CKD I will still sell at RM125k. That’s my advantage compared to all the new players in the market, because I have a plant and it’s fully amortised. We will still keep the MRSP (for the C10) even if the incentive goes away,” Yeo told paultan.org.
“If the tax (free scheme) goes away, I don’t need two years to CKD – I’m there!” he declared.
Initially, the CKD cars will be for local consumption, to get in line with the government’s requirements. The group’s ASEAN chief says that aside from the fact that Malaysia currently has no EV and battery ecosystem, there’s also no special tax incentives under AFTA to export EVs to ASEAN neighbours. But the long term plan for Gurun involves exports of not just Leapmotor, but cars from Stellantis’ other brands too.
“The plant for Malaysia is not only for Malaysia. Malaysia is my main manufacturing hub in Asia Pacific, but it (volume) is actually for exports in the future. In the past, we also exported Peugeots from Gurun, and the plan is to have four to five brands all built in Malaysia for exports,” Yeo said, adding that Stellantis plans to use up Gurun’s 60k per annum capacity. Exports will be ‘beyond ASEAN’, he said.
Click for more on the Leapmotor C10 and upcoming B10 electric SUVs. As the latter will be CKD from launch, it can be priced below RM100k if Stellantis wants to.
