THE future may lie in New Energy Vehicles or NEV that help to minimise or eliminate environmental pollution.
NEV refers to a vehicle that runs on hybrid powertrain, which is a combination of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) and electric battery (hybrid); vehicle that runs on full electric powertrain with energy from battery known as Electric Vehicle (EV); and a vehicle that runs on hydrogen powertrain.
Of these three types of NEV, the most popular worldwide is the full Electric Vehicle or EV.
The EV is expected to completely replace the century-old ICE vehicles in the next few decades to mitigate the dependency on petroleum for the auto industry and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
This is fairly obvious as the European Union (EU) and many other countries have make it into law that by 2030 no more new fuel power ICE vehicles will be sold.
In the last decade, China, the United States and Germany have made tremendous efforts towards that reality by providing funding and subsidies to automakers in the race to be the global leaders in manufacturing EVs.
This has resulted in the establishment of Tesla in the US that is valued five times more in terms of capitalisation compared with Toyota, the world largest automaker.
In a similar vein, NIO, the EV manufacturing start-up from China, has a bigger market capitalisation than BMW or Daimler Benz.
Beside manufacturing EVs, China National Energy Grid Association has been requested by the government to undertake the building of 800,000 EV-charging stations in China to support the EV industry.
In the EU and the US, automobile companies like Tesla and VW Group are building EV-charging stations across the EU, the US and Canada.
Oil companies such as Shell, BP and many others have also taken a stake in this by investing heavily to build EV-charging stations in the EU, the US, Canada and other countries.
In Southeast Asia, under the directive of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, PERTAMINA and PLN (Indonesian electrical company ala Tenaga Nasional Berhad) are building EV-charging stations in Java and Bali to support the local EV development, resulting in Toyota, Hyundai and most likely Tesla setting up their EV manufacturing plants in Indonesia.
EV is a game-changer to replace the century-old automotive industry, while also seen as one of the biggest products under the Industrial Revolution 4.0.
This year sees an onslaught of EV trend in the global vehicle market with EV products produced by established automotive giants, after they were caught napping by upstarts like Tesla, NIO and several other EV manufacturing companies.
As all EU automotive companies have committed to setting up their EV manufacturing plants in Thailand and China, Japanese and Korean companies are setting up their EV manufacturing plants in Indonesia and most likely followed by Tesla too.
We would be left empty-handed if no moves are made to entice these companies to invest in Malaysia's EV industry.
The only hope for Malaysia to participate in this multibillion-dollar industry is for the government to take two immediate steps:
TO PROVIDE funding and incentives such as subsidies to Malaysian-owned EV manufacturing companies; and,
TO ENGAGE Petronas and Tenaga Nasional Berhad to cooperate and set up EV-charging stations at least in west Malaysia to kick off the EV infrastructure development and growth in the country.
Without such actions, Malaysia will be left behind and may never be able to catch up and compete in this giant industry.
The writer is senior lecturer and head of Innovative Electromobility Research Lab at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UiTM Shah Alam. She is also former visiting researcher and associate fellow of United Kingdom Higher Education Academy, University College London