Govt Targets 10,000 EV Charging Stations By 2025

Without widespread and easily accessible charging stations, the uptake of electric vehicles might not reach its potential even with all the incentives and free road tax introduced starting in 2022, but hopefully, this new initiative will change that.

With fuel prices quickly on the rise, more people are likely going to be taking a keener interest in becoming EV-adopters and ditching the fuel pump for the plug point, so to speak.

As reported by Bernama, the Malaysian government is targeting to have installed some 10,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2025 as part of the Low Carbon Mobility Blueprint (LCMB) 2021-2030.

They won’t go at it alone, though, as they intend to seek partnerships with private sector vendors and technology suppliers to achieve this within that intended timeframe. These collaborations will be spearheaded by the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC), admitted Datuk Lim Ban Hong, the Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry.

If that acronym sounds familiar, MGTC is actually GreenTech Malaysia (Malaysian Green Technology Corporation) that’s been renamed - for some reason.

In response to a question from Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman, Lim told the Dewan Rakyat: “Right now, we have about 300 EV charging stations which were set up under these collaborations, bringing the total to an estimated 600 charging stations nationwide.”

Of course, 600 charging stations are a far cry from their 2025 goal of 10,000, but Lim was confident that the fruits of these upcoming collaborations alongside the formation of an Electric Vehicle Taskforce will be up to the challenge.

“Standards related to the EV industry, such as charging systems, battery disposal activities, battery swapping, wireless charging, and others are also being established to ensure that the EV technology used and developed in the country is standardised, safe and of quality,”

“For example, two major companies from South Korea, SK Nexilis and IMM Technology, have invested in Malaysia to produce electro-deposited copper foil, a component of EV batteries.”

What was not addressed is the monetisation side of these new charging stations, would it follow a similar subscription model as used by chargEV, or might these government-installed chargers be free for the Rakyat to use.

If it is the former, and let’s be honest it probably will be, can we expect the current pricing scheme to be maintained given the rising price of coal and cost of (definitely not zero emissions) electricity production?