Organisation:
Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS)
Resource Link:
Published in 2022, Link
My Key Takeaways
How’s Southeast Asia’s EV ecosystem developing and which countries are well positioned to benefit from the dynamic sector’s growth?
Here are some of my takeaways from ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS)’s study.
Bright outlook for SEA’s EV market
Southeast Asia (SEA) is the world’s 7th largest automotive manufacturing hub (3.5M vehicles produced in 2021) and the report covers four markets:
– Thailand (1.6 million vehicles produced in 2021)
– Indonesia (1.1 million)
– Malaysia (0.48 million)
– Vietnam (0.16 million)
In 2021, Indonesia had a motorisation ratio of 485 registered vehicles (including two-wheelers) / 1,000 persons and Vietnam had a mere 44.6 vehicles / 1,000.
EV adoption as a percentage of total new passenger vehicles was only 0.7%, 0.3% and 0.1% respectively for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia in 2021 [McKinsey].
SEA’s low EV base and existing automotive strengths would drive its EV market growth by more than five times from USD 500M in 2021 to USD2.7B by 2027!
Planning your SEA EV supply chain
– Mineral resources
– Semicon chips
– EV production (hybrid EVs, Batteries etc)
– Battery recycling/swapping/rentals
– EV R&D
Figure 1 maps out EV production and related activities across the four featured countries.
➡️ Interesting that all four countries produce electric motorcycles and also plan to manufacture EV batteries (great for supply chain resilience). (Table 2, Pg 8)
E.g. Honda started hybrid vehicle CPE batteries production in Malaysia since 2020 and Samsung also plans to develop EV batteries there.
Supportive government policies (Table 1, Pg 5-7)
1. National EV targets
2. Improving EV affordability
3. Increasing charging stations
4. Incentives for production & investment
E.g. Indonesia’s state-owned electricity enterprise (PLN) plans to build 31,000K charging stations by 2030. It wants 20% of its vehicles to be EVs by 2025, and will ban internal combustion engines for passenger cars and motorcycles by 2035.
EV challenges
➡️ Fossil-based electricity sources
At least 80% of electricity production share come from fossil fuels for Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia (Figure 2, Pg 11).
Thankfully, there’re concrete plans to increase renewables‘ share (Table 3, Pg 12).
➡️ What about batteries?
Unlike widely-recycled traditional lead acid batteries, larger EV lithium ion batteries (LIB) are made up of several hundred individual LI cells. Service providers need to be careful during dismantling to avoid explosion risk (Pg 12).
With LIBs’ lifetime between 5 – 20 years, we need policies to manage obsolete/end of life LIB to ensure the sustainability of an EV industry beyond the reduction of tailpipe carbon emissions.
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Asia’s innovation hub Singapore (SG) also benefited from SEA EV’s growth
Singapore opened a new battery recycling facility capable of recycling 14 tonnes of LI batteries.
Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center in Singapore (HMGICS)’s new facility allows customers to customise/purchase EVs online using smart phones & watch their car being manufactured there before testing on a 620m long sky track.
The centre will house solar panels, fuel cells, i4.0 tech & a landing port for urban air mobility.
Production of SG’s first EV “IONIQ 5” will start in mid Jan 2023!
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About Zhilin SIM
Having worked and lived in Singapore, the Nordics, China, Spain, UK, I’m now based in Paris.
I’m fluent in English, French and Mandarin, and I’m learning Arabic because it’s a beautiful and fascinating language.
My team creates and supports one-many initiatives connecting corporate and startup ecosystems in Europe to business and innovation opportunities in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
I’m passionate about horticulture, watercolour, startups/tech as well as French cuisine, Peranakan kueh techniques and other global cuisines.
Feel free to connect with me if you think my network in Europe and Asia could be of benefit to your business and innovation activities.
