07/12/2025

Contributing Editor Keshy Dhillon / keshy@piston.my Editorial

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SUNDAY | DEC 7, 2025

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BY KESHY DHILLON

SO, it has finally happened. Perodua’s highly anticipated EV has officially been launched by none other than our Prime Minister. That is how big of a deal the car is. Perodua was tasked by the government with producing Malaysia’s first home grown EV. It had to be 100% Malaysian made, none of that rebadging stuff would be accepted. And Perodua did not just deliver, it aced it. And it took them a little over two years to do it. The company invested approximately RM800 million and 266,000 man-hours solely in research and development. So, trust me when I say that this is Malaysia’s most important car since the Proton Saga was introduced back in 1988. LET’S LOOK BACK Perodua has undoubtedly come a long way since it first made the announcement that it was working on an electric vehicle circa 2023. Perodua had to go at it alone since its long-term partner and shareholder Daihatsu does not have its own EV. If you don’t already know, Daihatsu pro vides some of the know-how for Perodua cars, and in the early days, models like the Myvi were rebadged Daihatsu’s. Now though, Perodua Myvis, Axias and Bezzas all have local engineering with local ised parts and such. They are no longer sim ple rebadged Daihatsu’s. So, Perodua had to go at it alone from the get-go. Recognising that it had to recruit part ners or risk facing unfathomable cost, Perodua went to global automotive giant Magna Steyr for some knowledge transfer. The Austrian company works with some of the biggest brand in the business such as Toyota, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and others. If a car needs to be developed and built, Magna Steyr is who you want to talk to. And that is what Perodua did. Then it spoke to local companies like TNB and Gentari about charging infrastruc ture as well as UTM (University Technology Malaysia). Perodua obviously had a mountain to climb but climb it did. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE CAR The mandate from the government was clear, crystal in fact. Create a Malaysian made electric car and make it fast. In early 2024, Perodua showcased the first concept at the Malaysia Auto Show. This was based on a Myvi and called the E MO 1. Towards the end of 2024, Perodua showed Malaysians another concept car that was closer to what we see today. Called the E-MO 2, this concept was much more than just a concept as the battery, battery management system and motor were already being tested together with the plat form. Along the course, public universities were engaged for knowledge transfer as well as local and foreign companies to help with the development. Perodua took the government’s mandate seriously. The easy way out would have been to plonk in an electric motor into one of its existing models, but that would have been lazy and unbecoming. So, the fact that Perodua developed the

Well done, Perodua! Citizens proud of first ever Malaysian made EV

But of course, the most important ques tion here is how far can the car on a full charge? Perodua says the QV:E will travel 445km on the NEDC cycle, and during our preview test drive, I saw a range of 365km with a 90% state of charge. So, in terms of range and performance, the QV:E is obviously more than decent. INTERIOR I was surprised to say the least, because I was expecting Perodua to reuse buttons and knobs from the current parts bin. But instead what I saw was an all-new interior with new buttons and that was refreshing. In terms of tech, the QV:E keeps up with the times with dual digital screens with a 10.25-inch infotainment system taking cen tre stage. And yes, there is wireless Carplay and Android Auto as well. The flat-bottomed steering wheel is all new for Perodua and comes loaded with hard buttons, 16 of them to be exact. Even the button to engage the 360-degree cam era is placed on the steering wheel as well. The rotary gear shift knob is new as well as is the digital rear view mirror. I initially found the latter to be quite odd as well as this feature is usually reserved for large MPV’s or SUV’s, and then I noticed that rearward visibility can be rather poor, so the digital rear view mirror makes a lot of sense. As for interior trim, the seats are wrapped in part faux leather and part fab ric. The front seats are big and supportive with electronic adjustment for the driver’s side while the passenger still has to do it manually. Overall space at the front is decent. The back seats though were shocking and not in a good way. My six-foot frame found it cramped with the smallish rear windows making the rear space feel tight. The seats are also placed quite low and if you are also on taller side of the spectrum, you will feel as if your knees are quite close to your chest. Thigh support was almost

The front seats are big and comfortable.

into developing its own such components as it will not be financially viable. Even mega brands like Tesla use BYD batteries in some of their models. So Perodua shocking external compo nents is not shocking, it is perfectly normal. Besides, it already owns the most important Placed up ahead (making the QV:E a front-wheel-drive model) is an electric motor that puts out 150kW and 285Nm of torque. This catapults the QV:E to 100kph in just 7.5 seconds and tops out at 165kph. Powering the electric motor and placed at the centre of the car is a 52.5kWh, liquid cooled, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) bat tery. For charge, the battery accepts 6.6kW of AC charging which will take eight hours to recharge the car from zero to 100%. As for fast charging, the battery can accommodate 60kW of DC charging which will recharge the car from 30% to 80% in just 30 minutes. part, the platform. POWERTRAIN

QV-E fresh from the ground up is nothing short of respectable. And now after 32 years, Perodua has something it can call entirely its own. The platform is one of the most impor tant aspects of an EV, in fact for any car. And the platform of the QV-E is something that was jointly developed by Perodua as well as Magna Steyr with the intellectual property belonging to Perodua. It is a modular platform too; it can be shorted from its current length to become a hatchback or a small sedan. And it can even be elongated to become a SUV. It can also accommodate a hybrid powertrain as well, so we will see future Perodua models run ning the same platform. However, there are three major compo nents of the QV-E that have been sourced from other companies. The battery is sup plied by CATL, the battery management system is from Shanghai Electric, and the motor is from BYD. Sourcing parts from external parties is a perfectly normal practise in any industry. It would not make sense for Perodua to invest