data.gov.my & MEVnet Dashboard Plagued By Inaccurate Data? Was It Rushed?

The government has launched two notable websites, which serve as an aggregator site to provide Malaysians with the latest information on how the government is carrying out the announcements it has made recently especially with regards to the goal towards achieving 10,000 EV charging bays by 2025.

The website www.data.gov is one example of this; it gathers information from multiple government agencies and makes it available to Malaysians around-the-clock for any purpose, including immigration, vehicle, tax, and more. In our particular context, we are interested in the Road Transport Department's vehicle popularity data (JPJ).

The next site is the Malaysia Electric Vehicle Charging Network (MEVnet) dashboard, which was created to inform the public about the advancements being made in the country's EV charging network by the Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC), PLANMalaysia, and the Ministry of Local Government Development.

HOWEVER, based on a post on Malaysia EV Owners Club (MYEVOC) and further digging on both these sites we at CariCarz noticed the data populated actually does not reflect the actual state of matters in the country. Let's break down some examples below on why we say so.

Since going live in September, the data.gov website has classified the BYD Atto 3 somehow under the Buick brand. Imagine having to search through every brand to locate the model you need because of a data entry error that hasn't been fixed in some way till now.

How could that have occurred? Why hasn't this been rectified yet? Or was the site only created as a show of support for the minister's announcements and hasn't been maintained since? The team in charge of the data entry surely must be from the Road Transport Department therefore should be able to distinguish different brands, especially ones that are relatively new like BYD.

In the meantime, we are curious as to where the authority obtained the 1,430 electric vehicle charging bay (EVCB) number as stated on the freshly released MEVnet dashboard. Agmo, another independent aggregator website, only keeps track of 1,136 EVCB till date. So who is correct, or does both this site new and old require proper updates to reflect the real numbers?

Our reasoning for saying this is because, despite only having been launched earlier last week, the data on MEVnet seems to be poorly updated. Datuk Shahrol of MYEVOC pointed out that for Shell HPC Northbound Pagoh, only one nozzle is active at one time meaning it should be only counted as one (1) EVCB until Shell Recharge decides to enable the 2nd nozzle split output. He too pointed out that the EV charger at Komplexs D’Star Arena has been long removed however MEVnet still takes into account its former existence.

In addition, Shahrol provided other examples of data inaccuracy. Petronas Gambang North Bound only has 1 DCFC and no AC charger, while Petronas Genting Sempah only has 1 DCFC instead of 2 and no AC charger; Petronas Ulu Bernam's AC charger has been removed; and Behrang Layby Northbound's 4 DCFC should not yet be taken into account as it is not yet open to the public.

Conversely, as CariCarz discovered, MEVnet also fails to include certain chargers that are operational even prior to the dashboards' release to the general public. For example data on MEVnet indicates R&R Tapah Southbound only has 2 AC chargers and no DCFC although the Shell Recharge DCFC has been at the location for quite awhile. Even the Gentari DCFC that was recently launched at the Proton Centre Of Excellence (COE) is still not included in the dataset.

Having said that, we as Malaysians must still be appreciative of the government's efforts to promote transparency while continuing to advocate for appropriate data tabulation and accountability in order to improve public awareness.