Here’s why Malaysia launched the new Mercedes E-Class so late, after Thailand and Vietnam
Hans · Aug 15, 2021 02:37 PM
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Thailand market E220d model shown
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.
Thailand market E300e PHEV
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.
Mercedes-Benz Malaysia's plant in Pekan
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.
Pre-facelift model shown
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.
Vietnam's E200 Exclusive
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.
Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.
