01/02/2026

theSunday Special XV ON SUNDAY FEB 1, 2026

Cars and motorcycles

their money on. Besides that, I also embarked on a special drive organised by Chery Malaysia. This drive was designed to explore the capabilities of the Chery plug-in hybrid systems, found in the Tiggo 7 Plug-in Hybrid and the Tiggo 8 Plug-in Hybrid, that state its powertrains can travel over 1,200km on a full tank. I wrote this article from Kuala Terengganu after travelling about 480km. There is still another 800 odd kilometres to go to see if their cars can really travel as far as Chery says they can and so you can look forward for the report in the coming weeks. It is never fun to test the fuel effi ciency of a car as it requires tedious testing, but the Chery Tiggo 8 plug-in hybrid is a revelation of sorts, especially for a car which costs just under RM160,000. You might want to hold off any pur chase of a new car till after the video and article have been published because the Chery Tiggo 8 Plug-in Hybrid may just surprise you.

THE past two weeks have been some of the most interesting in my automo tive journalism career. I have driven a Honda Civic Type R FL5 for a few days with close to 1,000km spent behind the wheel. The Type R FL5 represents the epit ome of front-wheel-drive sports cars and is such a joy to drive even with the family in it. Driving a sports car with a manual transmission is a great way to appreci ate how far cars have come and that some car makers can still produce a deeply engaging car. After that, I got to experience the Xpeng G6 long range, which is widely regarded as one of the best electric cars of recent days, anywhere in the world. An oxymoron to the Civic Type R, I know, but I will say that it is brilliant in its own unique way. I appreciate the tech it has to offer. Then came the feather in the cap. In the past two weeks, I have ridden 18 new motorcycles in my position as the judge of the Allianz-BikesRepublic.com

dred thousand Ringgit to spare can log on to a website, place an order for motorcy cles from China, and then localise them with some parts sourced from local vendors, give it a Malaysian sounding name and call it “Malaysian made”. Of course that is oversim plifying the process, but that is

Malaysian Motorcycle of The Year Awards. There are still another 20 or so motorcycles to judge before the winners are announced on April 2. The awards are the second instal lation and is the only one of its kind in Malaysia. It might sound fun and fancy, but it is tiring and gruesome, espe cially during the current heatwave. The bikes include anything from 110cc scooters to 1400cc goliaths of the motorcycling world. The awards are also needed because Malaysians have never been bombarded with so many new brands as we are now. If you think the car industry is pop ping up never before heard brands, the motorcycling industry has a surprise for you. These days, anyone with a few hun

WRITTEN BY KESHY DHILLON

basically the gist of it. And that is why the motorcycle awards are necessary, for Malaysians to make an informed purchase decision. And rather than awarding points based on what the motorcycles have to offer on paper, an experienced line-up of judges test the bikes and awards points based on features, performance and safety factors, among other things. This helps motorcycles buyers decide which motorcycle they should spend

Diversity kings Locally assembled 2026 Volvo ES90 launched with 651km range

VOLVO CAR MALAYSIA (VCM) has just launched the 2026 Volvo ES90. The Swedish carmaker’s flagship electric sedan will be available in a sole ES90 Ultra Single Motor trim priced at RM 339,8882, with an exclusive 2% early bird incentive for the first 100 bookings and a further 8% incentive for fleet purchases. The ES90 will be locally assembled (CKD) at their plant in Shah Alam, joining the EX30 compact crossover and the EX90 SUV, making VCM the brand with the most diverse CKD EV range in Malaysia. A rolling technological luxo-barge, the ES90 rides on Volvo’s contemporary Spa2 platform that operates on a Superset tech stack, unifying

to 99.9% UV protection. That wide tailgate hatch provides unmatched conven ience with up to 424 litres of space, expandable to 904 litres with the individually foldable 40/20/40 rear seats lowered. In the front, there is a 27-litre frunk. Infotainment command is through a 14.5-inch central touchscreen operating on Volvo’s latest UX with Google Built-in as well as wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Everything here is pow ered by the stunning Qualcomm Snapdragon Cockpit Platform. The ES90 can be had in four exterior colours, Vapour Grey, Crystal White, Denim Blue and Onyx Black.

width but the most important figures are its wheelbase of 3,102mm, making it 107mm longer than the BMW i5 although the Volvo is shorter overall by 60mm. Step into the luxurious interior and you’ll be cosset ted by Nappa leather Nordico upholstery while the seats are ventilated and heated at the front but the driver gets a lit tle extra with a massage func tion and a 9.0-inch digital instrument cluster. Rear passengers can recline their seats with the touch of a button and relax their arms on the lounge-style armrest. Completing the inte rior is an electrochromic sun roof that will go from trans parent to opaque at the press of a button and provides up

300 kW. If you can find such a charger to hook up to, your ES90 will gain 300km of range (NEDC) in just 10 min utes and go from 10% to 80% in just 22 minutes. While that is all well and good, it does disappoint on the AC charging front with only an 11kW AC on-board charger. On the outside, the major ity will generally consider this a sedan but in the metal, it looks like an amalgamation of a traditional sedan that had a wild night with a hatch back crossover. You cannot avoid the raised ride height with its ground clearance of 178mm. The dimensions are 5,000mm in length and 1,942mm in

the hardware and software modules for continuous updates and improvements via over-the-air (OTA) updates. Not only that, it is the first Volvo to run on dual Nvidia Drive AGX Orin core computers. In the trim sold here, it houses a single electric motor at the rear axle, delivering 333PS and 480Nm of torque, enough for a century sprint time of 6.6 seconds. Like all new Volvos sold, top speed is limited to 180kph. There is a 92kWh (88kWh usable) nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery feeding the motor and is WLTP rated at 651km. Under the skin, 800V archi tecture allows for a mind boggling DC charging of up to