Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer from the United States, has officially entered the Malaysian market in 2023, with the promise of developing car sales and service centers and EV chargers nationwide.
There have also been discussions about the development of a Tesla vehicle manufacturing plant in Malaysia, but the matter has not yet yielded any results. Malaysia's Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Tengku Zafrul Aziz recently said that discussions on this matter are still ongoing.
Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, Tengku Zafrul said that the initial agreement between the Malaysian government and Tesla was for the company to open a company in Malaysia, and officially start selling electric vehicles in the local market.
Whether the company develops an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the country is seen as depending on the commercial viability in the country. Before Malaysia, Tesla also held talks with Indonesia to open a vehicle manufacturing plant there, but ultimately the project did not proceed.
Currently, Tesla only has a factory in China, where vehicles manufactured in that country are imported to other Asian countries.
One of Tesla's promises to Malaysia is the development of 50 Superchargers (180kW) where 30 percent of the total chargers can be accessed by other EV vehicles.