EV Charger Data Inaccuracy & Licencing: Who Is Falling Behind?

We keep coming back to this point when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs) and their associated electric vehicle charging bays (EVCBs), or the slow pace with which they are growing.

Last week, the Energy Commission (ST) announced that the DCFC facility at Mercedes-Benz Johor Bahru, where the Mercedes EQB caught fire, was unlicenced. Our follow-up report revealed that ST listed 222 licenced EV charging locations, while PLANMalaysia's dashboard shows 750 known existing charging locations.

A quick check today revealed 223 licenced EV charging locations, an increase of one (1) location from last week. There are 654 EVCB listed across these 223 licenced locations according to ST’s website.

This raises the question of how ST arrived at this number, whether they visited the locations before listing them on their website, or if there was a data entry error. For example, Tesla's Supercharger locations and EVCB numbers do not add up. Their A'Famosa Freeport facility, which has four DC/Superchargers, is only listed as one DC Charger on ST's licenced list.

At the time of writing, the government's "active" EV Charger dashboard, MEVnet, was just refreshed which shows 2,020 EVCB’s (429 DCFC and 1,591 AC chargers). This is a far cry from the 4,000 EVCB target set for the end of 2023, with a goal of 10,000 by 2025.

This is the same number repeated by every minister in office, including Tengku Zafrul, Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry (MITI), as well as Natural Resources, Environment, and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Ahmad. Let us not discuss the validity of these numbers, which we have previously debunked.

When we compare just these two numbers from the two government departments under the National EV Taskforce, we can see a significant difference in the number of licenced chargers. This demonstrates that the government is aware of the chargers' existence, but nothing is being done to expedite matters.

A quick check with one of the nation's largest charge point operators (CPO) reveals that many of the cases submitted in Nov 2023 are still pending without any comment on whether they meet ST's requirements and need to be adjusted to qualify for the licence.

To make matters worse, we are hearing news that ST has mandated that EV Charging Stations install their own dedicated electric meters, even for condominiums, requiring an additional investment of approximately RM20,000 per site from CPOs. CariCarz.com believes that all additional costs imposed on CPOs are unnecessary, especially given that none of them expect to turn a profit in the next 10-15 years.

Based on feedback we've gathered online, particularly from the MYEVOC Facebook group and one of its founder Datuk Shahrol Halmi, we believe there is a call for transparency among government departments towards the consumers they're encouraging to make the switch to EV ownership. Furthermore there is also a call for the governing agencies to begin monitoring CPO uptime and reliability in order to ensure the charging points are well cared for and available at all times.

And yes all this are totally valid requests from the public who are buying into the government's electrification narrative at this very early stage.