Car companies with a large inventory of CBU EVs don’t have to rush to clear stock.
TV3’s Buletin Utama reported that the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) has confirmed a massive piece of news: fully-imported electric vehicles that were brought into Malaysia before 28 December 2025 will continue to qualify for import tax and excise duty exemption. The exemption for CBU (completely built-up) EVs is set to expire at the end of December, leading many to speculate that unsold stocks of these vehicles would go up in price over night on the 1st of January 2026.
No Need To Offload Unsold EV Stock
However, this latest statement from MAA would confirm that unsold stock can continue to enjoy lower pricing next year as the exemption applies to vehicle entering the market, not the time it takes to deliver the vehicle into customer hands. As long as the vehicle has entered the country BEFORE December 28 2025, and is declared to customs, the vehicle will be excise duty and import tax exempt.
Changes Coming In 2026 For EVs
Starting next year, in order for electric vehicles to continue to enjoy these same exemption, they will need to be locally-assembled. There are already quite a number of CKD (completely knocked down) EVs for sale in Malaysia including a number from premium makes like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and BMW. Mass market EVs in CKD form are a little tougher to come by, but many brands already have plans in place for local assembly to begin in 2026. This includes Leapmotor, Xpeng, Proton, Chery, iCaur, BYD, to name a few of the more popular EV sellers. Even Zeekr has indicated CKD plans. However, Tesla are still mum on CKD operations and may end up looking extremely uncompetitive in a couple of weeks.
Last year, EVs made up around 2.54% of our record high 816,747 unit TIV in 2024, and while our TIV is expected to still exceed 800,000 vehicles in 2025, it’s expected that EVs will climb slightly in proportion of that share of vehicles sold. We’ll only be able to examine the numbers in detail some time next year, so check back for that report. We’ll also be examining how much tax revenue the government has given up based on the EVs sold tax free, and perhaps also look at whether these revenue losses were made up elsewhere.
