He said that the condition was put in place to allow local players to get themselves ready for electrification. While it was not specifically mentioned in the document, the move essentially prevents imports from affecting the locally-assembled vehicle market in the under-RM100k price segment.
“We are giving them time to prepare for EVs. There have been questions as to why we are not liberalising quicker, but we have to look at the big picture to protect our local automotive industry for a while so that there is a just transition, because it does relate to a lot of employment, from jobs to suppliers,” he told“I hope by 2025 our local companies have already transitioned, because Tesla’s and Chinese carmakers’ technologies have already shown that they are ready,” he said.