Perodua EV Set to Debut This December – Below RM80K, Pilot Production Started

Perodua’s first EV is set to debut this December, with its pilot production already started and priced below RM80,000.

After a series of prototypes and spy shots, national automaker Perodua is finally confirming the launch date for its first-ever EV model, which is set to take place this December. Unveiled during the launch of its new P-Circle super app earlier today, the national automaker also gave us several updates regarding its mysterious EV model in preparation for its launch later.

Perodua President & CEO Dato' Sri Zainal Abidin Ahmad (left) revealed that pilot production of the P2 EV has already commenced.

Firstly, Perodua President and CEO Dato’ Sri Zainal Abidin Ahmad revealed that pilot production of the EV has already started at P2’s Rawang facility, with the car already being homologated just in time for its year-end debut.

Zainal further added that now its pilot production has commenced, Perodua has raised its monthly sales target to 2,500 units. While this sounds puny compared to P2’s ICE products, it is still substantially higher compared to other EVs sold here, with the current best-selling EV model, the Proton e.MAS 7, only charting an average monthly sale of around 700 units.

Prior to this, the CEO had given a more reserved production target range between 500 and 2,000 units per month for the new EV, which was still plenty compared to P1’s current EV delivery output.

Unlike Proton, which employs the help of its partner Geely to ‘develop’ its EVs, P2’s EV model is fully developed by its local team, thus explaining why it took them so long to launch it. This also gives Perodua reason to develop its own local EV parts ecosystem, with the upcoming EV set to feature up to 50% of localised content by mid-2026.

That said, some of the P2 EV’s key components, such as the drive motor and the battery pack, are still sourced from China, with the latter coming from Chinese battery giant CATL.

Also separating P2 from P1 is the branding, where the upcoming Perodua EV will be sold alongside its ICE-powered siblings at the current P2 dealer network, thus eliminating the need to set up a sub-brand and an entirely new outlet network. To support this new EV, current Perodua sales and after-sales personnel around the nation will instead be trained.

More importantly, Dato’ Sri Zainal further added that the new EV would still be priced at the maximum of RM80,000, and this is despite Proton recently unveiling the tentative price for the upcoming Proton e.MAS 5, which will retail around RM60,000 to RM80,000.

Perodua QV-E EV crossover rendered by Theottle

While this will put both models in the same price segment, they are not exactly an apple-to-apple comparison, as the P2 EV is a larger and sportier B-segment SUV crossover, while the e.MAS 5 is a B-segment hatchback.

Also not comparable are the specs, with P2 claiming its EV boasts a WLTP range of more than 400 km, plus a rapid century sprint time of less than seven seconds and a top speed of up to 165 km/h. For comparison, the urban-oriented e.MAS 5 only gets up to 325 km of WLTP range, while its V-max is capped at only 135 km/h.