Go To-U EV charging hub in Malaysia finally online more than 2 weeks after launch

Go To-U Malaysia delivered on its promise to open its electric vehicle charging hub in Cyberjaya before the Chinese New Year, which starts tomorrow. The facility, located at the event space RekaScape, was launched more than two weeks ago, but it’s been beset by problems and was out of operation for the whole period.

The long (and slightly embarrassing) saga began just a day after the launch, with netizens reporting that the 60kW DC fast chargers remained offline. In response, the greater Go To-U organisation—an EV charging solutions provider based in California—wrote in a Facebook comment, “Creating of such infrastructure projects is a long process and it takes enormous effort and resources to make everything work as it should. Some delays are normal as simply not everything depends on us or on our partners.”

Last week, automotive portal Caricarz wrote that REISB was planning to restore services by CNY. Then on Thursday, we reported on the entire hub disappearing from the Go To-U app. We managed to reach out to Izuan Hafiz, the CEO of Go To-U Malaysia’s parent company Roda Emas Industries (REISB), and he explained that its technicians had simply removed it from the app for testing; it had planned to get it back online and working over the weekend, “latest by Friday [20 January].”

Today, the two 60kW dual-gun Star Charge DC fast chargers—which can serve up to four vehicles at a time—are finally showed as working on the app, available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Go To-U Malaysia also appears to have enabled the full output on at least one of the chargers, meaning you will get all 60kW of power if the other nozzle isn’t being used. The company previously said it planned to monitor demand from owners of EVs capable of accepting the higher wattage during the initial period.

The chargers are currently free of charge for a limited period. This was supposed to only last until the end of the month, but given the length of time the facility was out of commission, it remains to be seen if Go To-U Malaysia will extend it. Anyway, that deadline was more of a tentative date rather than a hard cut-off—Izuan told us during the event that the company had yet to decide on a charging rate, nor whether it will charge customer per kWh used or time elapsed at the station.

Aside from its own branded charging hub, the Go To-U app also includes Sime Darby Motors’ network of chargers (mostly at Auto Bavaria BMW and Mini dealers), as well as those from Tenaga Nasional’s TNBX subsidiary.

Interestingly, Go To-U claims to be the world’s first to offer pro reservation technology for EVs in a mobile app. The local ParkEasy app also offers a reservation system for Shell Recharge which requires an app to manage the smart parking barrier. However, Go To-U has the advantage of letting users book specific time slots up to seven days in advance.