KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — The Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) has announced the Total Industry Volume (TIV) figures for the first half of 2024. At the same time, the organisation has also revealed the number of electric vehicles (EV) sold in Malaysia within the same period.

BEV sales increased more than 100 per cent in 1H 2024

According to today’s announcement, MAA members have sold 22,501 units of xEV models from January to June this year. Out of this number, 6,617 units were battery-powered EVs (BEVs) while the other 15,884 units were hybrid models.

MAA added that the BEV sales for 1H 2024 are 112 per cent higher than 1H 2023. Since the figure didn’t include sales by non-MAA members such as Tesla, the BEV sales in Malaysia for the past few months are likely much higher.

BEV helped increase Malaysia’s TIV

Malaysia has recorded a TIV of 390,296 units within the first half of this year which MAA said is 6.6 per cent higher than the same period last year. MAA members has also recorded a much higher Total Industry Production (TIP) in 1H 2024 as well as at 392,052 units.

Even though BEV sales represented only 1.7 per cent of Malaysia’s TIV for 1H 2024, the association has listed increased BEV sales as one of the contributing factors to the higher TIV figure. It is believed that the release of new models over the past few months has helped increase the adoption of BEVs.

Aside from that, other factors include positive reactions from the market for many of the new models (both ICE and EV) as well as stability in the socio-politic, employment market, and Overnight Policy Rate (OPR). In addition to backlog orders, the recent growth in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate has also helped increase the TIV, says MAA.

The increasing popularity of BEVs in Malaysia

We have previously already seen a major increase in EV registration within the first half of 2024. As noted in our previous report, more than 10,000 EVs have been registered between January and June 2024 — a 141.85 per cent increase over the same period last year.

While the sales figure will likely increase, we believe the real movement within the local EV market will only happen in 2025. This is due to the introduction of the first Proton e.MAS EV in December.

In addition to that, Perodua is also expected to launch its first EV next year which is said to be priced between RM50k to RM100k. Furthermore, several mainstream EV models such as Neta Aya, Neta X, Dongfeng Nammi 01, and Chery Omoda E5 will be locally assembled in Malaysia soon, freeing them from the existing RM100k base price policy. — SoyaCincau