Budget 2027: Malaysian Highway Authority to deploy 50 EV charging stations?

The Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) will deploy 50 EV charging stations next year. This was revealed through the tabling of Budget 2027 earlier today.

To be clear, LLM’s plan was not explicitly mentioned by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Parliament. Instead, it can be found in the speech text published on the official Budget 2027 website.

LLM’s 2027 EV charger target was also mentioned by Works Minister Alexander Nanta Linggi during a press conference after the tabling of Budget 2027.

That’s 1 charging station per week – a massive improvement!

Given that there are 52 weeks in a year, and taking long holidays such as Chinese New Year and Hari Raya into consideration, we are looking at an average deployment of 1 charging station per week.

It might not sound like much, but believe it or not, that is actually pretty good compared to what we are experiencing right now. Let’s take one of the latest examples: TNB Electron DC charger at R&R Rawang Northbound.

This location was first announced by TNB back in early 2023. However, photos published on PlugShare show that construction on the EV charging station only began late last year, and it was eventually operational on 28 September 2026.

Even if you ignore over 3 years of idle time, you are still looking at almost a year between construction and activation!

As per what we have mentioned numerous times before, charge point operators (CPOs) continue to face significant challenges in rolling out proper highway charging hubs. Securing land and long-term leases at R&R sites often requires negotiations with multiple concessionaires and operators, which can be slow and commercially complex.

LLM has a big target, but is it achievable?

To LLM’s credit, they are not actually running around aimlessly when it comes to EV charging infrastructure on highways in Malaysia.

During the recent launch of the new ChargEV DC charger at Awan Besar R&R, LLM said that it is aiming to have 500 charging points by 2030. At the moment, there are already 148 DC charging points on highways across Malaysia – so, let’s see if LLM will be able to achieve its 2027 target.

Meanwhile, lest we forget, Malaysia missed its original 10,000 EV charging point target by a large margin. Despite that, the government has recently revised the target and is now aiming to have 30,000 EV charge points by 2030 – which is another headache altogether.