The supposedly simple act to charging up an EV in public over here is still one that is fraught with frustration. 

Here’s just a little snapshot of how convoluted and frustrating the public EV charging process can be in Malaysia. Warning: this is going to be a rant.  

Disclaimer: Before the EVangelicals bombard the comments calling for this writer’s head after reading what is written below, this writer readily admits here that what was experienced is a confluence of unfortunate events. That said, it does nevertheless clearly show that the public charging ecosystem in Malaysia still has a long way to go before being even halfway decent.   

The Initial Plan

So on test this weekend at Automacha is the new Mercedes-Benz EQS450 SUV 4MATIC. And after a long day of driving on Friday, its battery was showing by the night that it was depleted to 32%, with 186 km of range left. 

Now as this condo-dwelling writer had no access to any convenient home charging, the plan was formulated that night to fully top up the EQS SUV’s battery again on Saturday morning, which will see this EV through the weekend travel. And rather neatly, recently opened at The Starling was a 400 kW super fast DC charger.  

‘Sweet!’ this writer thought. A quick splash and dash in the morning while running a few errands in the mall kills two birds with one stone early on in the weekend! 

The Headaches Begin

#1. All New Chargers, All ‘Unavailable’

So now its next morning, and just because he was already anticipating that charging will require the use of an app, this writer had thus decided to pre-empt this inevitable hassle by first making sure he has the correct app downloaded, updated and signed in, as to not be hot and bothered while atttempting to get the car to charge at the public charge point.   

It was however only after using PlugShare to find out that it was operated by ChargEV, and then taking the time to download and sign up to their app, that this writer discovered despite being newly-opened, all five charging stations were apparently ‘Unavailable’ that morning.

Oh no. What is this writer to do now then? 

#2. Another Charger Found, But Login Problems Abound

Well for one, there goes all plans of any quick splash and dash at Damansara Utama. Luckily, he wasn’t exactly craving Village Park that fine day (other similarly good nasi lemak ayam goreng are available). The bigger issue was that there was still errands to run, hence a fast(-ish) charging plug point in a mall was still desired. 

Handily, going back on PlugShare revealed that The Curve had a JomCharge 180 kW fast charger. And having downloaded the JomCharge app, it showed that there was still a bay empty. 

Here comes the really annoying bit though, try as this writer might, he just can’t seem to sign up for a JomCharge account. Repeated attempts to do so had yielded the same error message of ‘We’re sorry, something went wrong when attempting to sign up.’

#3. Interconnectivity My Foot 

 Upon getting frustrated at trying and failing , this writer just remembered that a little while ago, there was news about how JomCharge, ChargEV and Gentari have partnered to enable all their respective public charging points to be accessed via any one of these apps. And after double checking that he was indeed correct, he went back to the recently downloaded ChargEV app to see if he could go through ChargEV to access the JomCharge charger. 

Unfortunately however, despite their claimed ‘interconnectivity’, ChargEV only showed their slow 3.7 kW at The Curve. The same was also to be true of Gentari as well, with it only showing a 3.7 kW charger too, while the 180 kW JomCharge charger is conspicious in its absence on either app.   

#4. JomCharge, But Only When You Login

As all this was going down, this writer was actually already en route to The Curve, pinning his hopes on there potentially being a QR code to scan on the charger that can allow one to charge using the JomCharge point as a guest. Unfortunately though, as this writer found out, JomCharge doesn’t actually allow anyone charge without an account…

Thankfully, seeing this writer steadily losing his patience, his exasperated passenger had the initiative to download the JomCharge app to see if he can set up an account. And rather fortunately, he somehow managed to sign up an account.

So using his phone and account, the EQS SUV was eventually getting some juice into its batteries from the JomCharge charger. Credit where credit is due to the charger as well, the Mercedes did show that it will be done topped up from its 30% to the preset 90% in just under an hour. 

This quick charge however did pose yet another unforeseen problem, as to be detailed right below. 

#5. Public Charging Courtesy = Major Personal Inconvenience 

Now this is admittedly a bit of a first world problem here, but the roughly 45 minute charge duration is really an awkward time. It is not a short enough span to actually just wait there for it to charge, but not long enough that you could do anything meaningful with that time, especially in a mall.  

For this writer’s case here, the 45-ish minute charging cut-off at 90% occurred while he was halfway through brunch. And not wanting to hog the public charger (in addition to not incurring any idling fees), this saw him constantly having one eye on his phone clock, and then meant that he had to excuse himself from his meal to move the car out of the charger and find another regular space for it when it was nearly done charging. 

Fortunately, the Curve is not exactly the most packed mall around. So finding a parking space at 11.00 am was still not the hardest thing to do. Though imagine having to do something like this in 1 Utama or Mid Valley on a busy weekend…

And for those who might have said to just leave it there, especially because there doesn’t seem to be any idling fees for JomCharge, you’re the problem with society. 

#6. One Does Not Simply Trust The JomCharge Estimated Charging Cost

One last rant to be made here is on the topic of cost, because this whole experience wasn’t exactly cheap. RM 106.70 for effectively a little over ‘half a tank of go-juice’ for this EQS SUV is pretty much on par with fuelling its equivalent ICE counterpart. 

Now admittedly, this high cost does come with the territory of using the high-powered 180 kW DC charger. The high charging cost is the price of convenience after all. Also the battery in the Mercedes-Benz is not exactly the smallest, with the 71.133 kWh top-up having added an extra 300+ km of driving range. 

Where this writer takes more issue though is that JomCharge has this readout on the charging page of its app that states how much the charge is currently estimated to be. And given that this particular charger is already stated to cost RM 1.50 per kWh of charge provided, it should be no issue then for them to provide an accurate account of how much it is currently costing to charge, right?

Wrong! JomCharge somehow managed to underestimate how much it costed to charge throughout the entire duration of the charge, to the point that even in its charging session summary it stated that the total charge costed RM 76.38. And this was really what we pretty much believed it costed, until an email that showed the final amount as being RM 106.70, which pretty much was the fly what has been a pretty shitty public charging experience!

Final Remarks 

This writer counts himself fortunate that he at least had the foresight of looking to see if the chargers were operational through the app from the comfort of his own couch beforehand, because one could only imagine the ensuing aggravation when only reaching The Starling and discovering all the chargers are down.

He has to also be thankful that the cellular signal at The Curve’s carpark is quite strong, meaning that there was at least one less thing to worry about while trying to get all these apps to work. Though with that said, solving this JomCharge login issue while milling around a basement carpark isn’t exactly what anyone would call comfortable. 

And while on this particular topic, it does beg the question as to what really is wrong with the tried-and-tested petrol station method of tapping a credit card and leaving one’s car there? While it is understandable that some EVs don’t have smartphone app integration, most of these high-tech cars do have some kind of app that would show in real-time the charging progress. 

What more too is that these apps telling you to key in your car details when creating a profile, when you just want to plug and go have breakfast…

In summarising this whole debacle, the public charging ecosystem in Malaysia still has a long way to go before it is even halfway as convenient as its ICE equivalent. And as hopefully exemplified here, the long wait times for charging is actually just a small factor that makes the whole experience a generally unpleasant one. 

Chargers that are down, convoluted login processes, the requirement of multiple apps… These all just add layers of frustration to the overall public charging experience. 

It has further reinforced the point that EV ownership is really only feasible (or at least waaaay less stressful) if one has a dedicated plug point for it to charge while at home. This luxury of always leaving the house with a full tank of go-juice is pretty much just that though, a luxury, which is only really afforded to those living in landed properties.