A little commotion took place shortly after the launch of Perodua’s first EV, the QV-E, and it had nothing to do with range anxiety.
A screenshot of its Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) paperwork went viral, with a line implying the battery could only be used for “Shariah-compliant” purposes.
Cue confusion, jokes and a lot of worried potential buyers. Perodua quickly moved into damage-control mode, blaming an internal miscommunication and stressing that the QV-E is not restricted to religiously approved trips.
A corrected disclosure sheet has since been issued, minus the offending clause.
What did survive the fine-tuning is the hard-nosed stuff.
Under the BaaS terms, miss two months of battery rental and Perodua may remotely disable the car’s start function or the battery itself.
Let it roll into a third unpaid month and the lease can be terminated, with the battery to be recovered and performance guarantees suspended.
Malaysia’s first homegrown EV also doubles as the country’s first proper subscription-to-drive experiment.
Useful factoid: Perodua has designed the car in a way that battery swapping can be done in 30 minutes flat.
