Perodua QV-E – 205 bookings so far, production delayed as China vendors not meeting quality stds

Perodua president and CEO Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Ahmad has told Careta in a video interview that the QV-E has collected 205 bookings since the launch of the national carmaker’s first EV on December 1, and that some 40 units, mostly showroom and test drive cars (test drives at eight outlets only), have been registered to date.

“Internally, we are facing some production problems with regard to the QV-E. We have been accustomed to very high quality standards, learnt from Japan. With the QV-E, we have found that some of our new suppliers, including from China, do not meet our quality standards,” Zainal said, adding that there are now 30 Perodua personnel in China monitoring the supplier(s) to ensure adherence to standard operating procedures.

Exactly which and how many of the QV-E’s numerous components are sourced from China is not public knowledge except for the 52.5 kWh LFP battery, which comes from CATL – the world’s biggest EV battery manufacturer. The Proton eMas 5 also uses CATL batteries.

So what about the 500-unit monthly target? “To be fair, at launch time (December), we weren’t going to achieve production of 500 units a month; we’d planned to start full production in January. It’s achievable based on our initial plan, but we decided to limit test drive cars to eight outlets as this is our first EV and also our first vehicle with many critical items from China, so our confidence to push for sales here is relatively low, despite there being market demand,” said Zainal.