Here’s why Malaysia launched the new Mercedes E-Class so late, after Thailand and Vietnam

The new W213-generation 2021 Mercedes-Benz E-Class facelift was finally launched in Malaysia on 29-July, 7 months after the car was first spied by WapCar.my on a trailer in Puchong, near Mercedes-Benz Malaysia’s head office in Kinrara.

The Malaysian launch of the new E-Class came five months after Thailand and one month after Vietnam – both are locally-assembled, just like Malaysia.

Obviously the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic was a factor but let’s not talk about Malaysia in isolation, as if Thailand or Vietnam are not facing the same pandemic.

The difference was, government agencies in Thailand and Vietnam have been operating as usual, and as such there were only minimal delays.

Over in Malaysia, manufacturers have experienced significant delays in price approvals. In principle, Malaysia no longer controls selling prices of cars but all locally-assembled (CKD) cars qualify for discounts in excise duty depending on the value of locally-sourced parts used, and this is where government approval is required.

The excise tax cut can come either from the Industrial Linkage Program (ILP), Multi Sourcing Parts (MSP) and customized incentives for Energy Efficient Vehicle (EEV). Of the three, ILP is the most common and significant one.

Approvals can only be done when the Automotive Business Development Committee (ABDC) – which comprises of Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Ministry of Finance (MOF), Malaysia Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Malaysia Automotive, Robotic, and IOT Institute (MARii), and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department – convenes.

As you can imagine. The amount of red tape is quite significant. Even after approvals by ABDC is done, the documents will still need to be submitted to the MoF. The entire process could take between 3 to 6 months.  

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic have only made this already unnecessarily long process even longer.

Speaking to the Malaysian media at a virtual meeting on Friday, WapCar.my asked Michael Jopp, Vice-President of Mercedes-Benz Malaysia (MBM), on why it took so long for MBM to launch the new E-Class here, when similar CKD versions of the E-Class have already gone on sale in Thailand since February.

“We would have been able to launch much earlier actually. We have been waiting for the ILP, for the final pricing approval for quite a long time. If we have received it earlier, the launch would have much earlier this year. We would have been ready, as we were running out of pre-facelift E-Classes. It was definitely an unfortunate situation.

“Nevertheless we are happy that during the lockdown situation, we got all the pending approvals so we could proceed with the launch, which honestly I was thinking that we might even have to wait until the end of the lockdown, and because there was a lot of anticipation and our dealers are already sitting on a very good order bank for the facelift model.

“This was the shortest turnaround that we had, between final approval and launch. We immediately went out and did the launch, obviously under very different circumstances than normal,” said Jopp.

The new E-Class is now available only in 2 variants, E200 Avantgarde and E300 AMG Line. The previous E350 have since been dropped. As for the plug-in hybrid E350e (now renamed as E300e), there no immediate plans to introduce it in Malaysia, for reasons that are already explained here.

Also read: Thailand gets the new Mercedes E300e PHEV but not Malaysia, Mercedes explains why

As before, the model is locally-assembled at Mercedes-Benz Malaysia’s assembly plant in Pekan.

Prices start from RM 326,943 and RM 375,432 for the E200 and E300 respectively.

Also read: W213 2021 Mercedes-Benz E-Class facelift launched in Malaysia; RM 326k to RM 375k

Meanwhile, if you're in the market for a used Mercedes-Benz E-Class W212 instead, be sure to check out our used car guide here.