Charging up the charging space: SP's big gambit on Malaysia

The admission is so frank - and slipped in so casually - that it is initially disarming: Even Dean Cher, the Managing Director of SP Mobility himself, seems half-relieved that we're in person together now in Kuala Lumpur's Mid Valley City.

"The fact that you made it here in one app - I flew here, but you guys drove up, so I was like, Will I see you guys here? Will the app really work? It does!"

We speak to Dean Cher, Managing Director, SP Mobility, in Kuala Lumpur after driving the IM 5 sedan up from Singapore and recharging it in Malaysia using only the SP app 

The app in question, of course, is the SP one you already use to pay for your utilities bills and possibly even local electric vehicle (EV) charging. 

And for it to have really worked, it would have had to handle all of our charging requirements without a hitch as we took the fully electric IM 5 Sedan (kindly provided by Eurokars Leasing) on a special jaunt: Locating chargers, operating them, and paying for the charging itself. 

All of this is admittedly fairly standard for most charging service providers in Singapore… except that as you may have noticed, our special jaunt involved crossing into Malaysia without tapping on any other app.  

Since end-October, SP users have been able to access and use chargers in Malaysia from within the SP app thanks to the latter's collaboration with JomCharge

Our mid-November conversation comes two weeks after the latest phase of SP Group's groundbreaking collaboration with Malaysia's JomCharge, which has seen the first 76 of the latter's charging locations onboarded onto the EV charging map of the SP app. Just the day before, we had driven up from Singapore to KL entirely with it. 

The headlining act of this new collaboration, touted by both parties, is seamlessness.

In essence, bilateral access to the charging stations operated by SP and JomCharge on both sides of the Causeway (or Second Link) has now been unlocked. And mind you, JomCharge isn't some fledgling startup either. Managing over 1,200 charging points itself, it's Malaysia's largest charging point operator (CPO), and boasts a special setup that sees it managing charging points for other providers too. Cher refers to it later in a LinkedIn post as a "roaming collaboration" - imagine data roaming in Malaysia, except that now you're enjoying roaming with your EV charging. 

 A peek behind the curtain 

Chowing down all together now on nasi lemak at Mid Valley City, in exactly the timing window we arranged to meet, it's weird to imagine that the very man fronting the promise of seamless cross-border charging was even slightly nervous about whether we would have made it. 

But speaking to him - and understanding the journey SP took to bring this seamless cross-border charging dream to life - puts his tentative confidence into perspective. 

While driving an EV halfway into Malaysia is nowhere near as challenging as it was five years ago, consider the fact that no Singapore-based app had, till now at least, really boasted a network of charging points wide enough to vanquish the need for app-hopping. 

JomCharge is Malaysia's largest CPO, with over 1,200 charging points across the country

For SP then, the first order of the day was to lock down the right partner. 

"There have definitely been conversations with others as well," Cher acknowledges. "But I think from our point of view… we wanted to test the market in a sense. I think it's quite important to work with an established CPO [like JomCharge], because then you will have points which are in places which Singaporeans will visit - because they are doing it for their Malaysian local markets."

Continuing, he declares: "Having that partner, having that breadth is important."

Then came the integration of JomCharge's charging points onto SP's own EV charging map. 

Cher explains that integrating JomCharge's charging points onto SP's own EV charging map was not as straightforward a task as many may assume

"I think a lot of people don't realise how technically challenging some of these things are. Because you do just think… visually it's the same charger there," Cher concedes. 

Without delving into the specific technicalities, he explains that while a general, standard set of protocols does indeed govern how charging stations are run, there is still significant-enough variance in how different CPOs interpret "the rules", with each company inevitably operating with its own idiosyncrasies. 

"So, yes, there's a lot of nuances there. For us, we may interpret it in Singapore this way… But for JomCharge, maybe they've interpreted it in a slightly different way. Then when you map the nuances, it's a challenge really to iron out the kinks. You also have charger identification - the way that we identify the chargers - it also has to be consistent across both networks as well."

"There's a lot of things that we have to do, which are behind the scenes, which then take time."

Pictured: Fast charging the IM 5 at Pullman Hotel KLCC the night before

Powering onwards  

Such challenges explain why the eagle-eyed may have noticed that Malaysian EV drivers have actually been enjoying a slight headstart. Access to SP's Singapore chargers from within the JomCharge app has been open since mid-2025. 

SP's efforts technically don't lag too far behind - the first JomCharge locations went live on its map in end-October - but when we embark on our road trip on mid-November, most of the chargers are still concentrated within Johor Bahru (JB) and KL. 

At that point, the only mid-way charging station is in downtown Malacca, and our hunt for it (in the name of scientific endeavour) inevitably throws us and our IM 5 onto a long detour.

EV drivers no longer have to take the detour we took to Marvelux Hotel in Malacca (pictured here); fast chargers on the NS Highway are now already accessible on the SP app

Profusely apologetic about it, Cher swiftly acts on our feedback. A mere two days after our conversation in KL, another 200 of JomCharge's charging points spanning 70 over locations are onboarded onto the SP app. Crucially, these now include vital R&R stops along the North-South Highway. No more detouring then. (Cher later explains to us separately that adding new points is now easier after doing the base integration.) 

Despite the impressive efforts expended to bring this roaming collaboration to life, you get the sense that a lot of it is still in its nascent days. Nonetheless, the eagerness with which Cher and his team seek feedback out, and the rapid-fire speed at which they respond to it, are also evident of a burning passion to keep Getting It Right.

Back in the present at Mid Valley City, he stresses more than once that the goal is to preserve seamlessness for local EV drivers. "We're doing this really just to provide [them] that convenience, that accessibility… Because it is an actual use case [for them to travel as they normally would with an ICE car]."

Transition anxiety versus range anxiety 

Having said that, however, Cher is also of the opinion that range anxiety - at least among Singaporeans - has been blown out of proportion.

Coolly, he quips: "We are 50km east to west, 20km north to south… If you tell me about range anxiety in Singapore, I don't know which route you're taking."

Instead, he counters that the phenomenon present amongst drivers today is slightly different, and gently puts forth what he believes to be a more accurate term: Transition anxiety.

Cher believes that 'range anxiety' doesn't properly capture Singaporeans' attitudes towards EVs, given how short even our longest commutes are; instead, 'transition anxiety' is a more accurate term

"It's anxiety of transitioning into something because you don't know enough about it," Cher proffers. 

Self-professing as an "EV evangelist", he laments that because many drivers are obstinately stuck in older mentalities of driving to a petrol station for a five-minute pump, they fail to see the new benefits that drivers of EVs can enjoy. 

With a combustion-powered car, for instance, you’d never be able to come back to a fully refuelled car after leaving it parked overnight, the same way you already can now with a fully charged EV - at one of the many AC charging points operated by SP Group at HDB carparks islandwide.

There are multifold benefits to living with an EV, including the ability to park it and charge it overnight right at your carpark, as well as enjoy priority parking at malls

"With charging, you have a chance to flip it around. It can be right there downstairs, at your doorstep." Cher also notes that as of now, there are also other little perks, such as priority parking at shopping malls with chargers.

In the meantime, both charging speeds and the driving ranges of modern electric cars will continue to grow. 

The 400km-eclipsing real-world driving range of our specific IM 5 sedan (in the Luxury trim) is exactly the figure that most mass-market EVs can achieve nowadays.

Most mass-market EVs, like our IM 5 Luxury, can already cover the full length of the Singapore-KL stretch on a single charge

On the way down to Singapore - now with travelling speed taking precedence over scientific endeavour - it whisked us easily from Mid Valley City to Toppen Shopping Centre in JB without any recharges required in between. (In fact, the car's battery stands at a very comfortable 28% when we pull into the carpark.)

Go up the price scale and you can already find models with up to 500km - and more. When solid-state batteries eventually arrive with the promise of 1,000km-ranges, this can be made even better still. Meanwhile, 1,000kW ultra-fast DC chargers have already debuted in China.  

Finding the right balance 

Cher acknowledges that the EV space is still maturing. But he also caveats that all CPOs ultimately run a business, in the same way that oil and gas companies run their petrol stations for profit. 

"This is not a public good," he clarifies about charging. Consequently, with the dual considerations of how much the power grid can handle as well as the weighing of opportunity costs ("With one 1,000kW supercharger, you can buy 10 x 100kW chargers"), SP's focus isn't always on building the fastest chargers, everywhere. 

It should thus be unsurprising too that it hasn't committed to onboarding JomCharge's entire network onto its map. Instead, Cher shares that the SP's broader vision for Malaysia differs slightly from that in Singapore: Nailing down high-volume destination charging points (such as those in popular Malaysian shopping malls). After all, these are the ones that visiting Singaporean drivers are most likely to use. 

Supplementary benefits, such as being able to drive into Malaysia without tapping on any other app, are arguably directed at locking users into SP's massive ecosystem 

Cher knows that SP has other names in the business edged out based on brand recognition. In tandem, sustaining this edge remains a crucial ingredient for its success.

"Consolidating [the charging points in both Malaysia and Singapore] on our app - I think it's important, because then from a trust point of view, Singaporeans can trust the app, and trust that their charging points are there."

"You guys now have actually tested it here," he says, pointing out that our road trip stands as living proof of its success.

SP's push into Malaysia can be interpreted as effectively a huge gambit that could cement its lead in Singapore's EV charging space

While he doesn't mention it explicitly, the bigger prize is clear to see. In fact, it's one that every CPO out there is gunning for: To be the main (or even sole) name that EV drivers eventually turn to.

If you could fulfil all your charging needs in Singapore and Malaysia on an app that already lets you pay for your utilities, why would you need another one? Convenience may be the carrot that it is dangling in front of users, but SP really wants you plugging in only at its chargers. This push into Malaysia with JomCharge isn't a mere network expansion. It's a tantalising supplementary benefit for end-users, which in turn, really stands effectively as a gambit that could possibly cement its lead. 

To ensure that the EV space matures, considerate behaviours - such as leaving a charging point once a car has been fully charged - must already be cultivated now

For the road ahead, SP will not ease off its vision of being the be-all-end-all CPO for customers. In tandem, however, it also acknowledges that its lofty ambitions have to be balanced along with a blueprint to condition the right behaviours amongst users (hello idle fees) while the adoption rate of EVs is still relatively low. (As of September 2025, EVs across all vehicle types still comprised only 5% of Singapore’s total vehicle population.)

In the face of it all, Cher remains curious, attentive, and unpresumptuous about how the space will grow. But for now, he is certain about one thing: Driving into Malaysia should only get easier for Singaporean EV owners. 

"Maybe you can plan [another drive], this time drive all the way up, further North. Then we can see how different the landscape is, both in Malaysia and in Singapore," he challenges us. "I can assure you, it will be very, very different."

Sgcarmart would like to thank Eurokars Leasing once again for lending us its IM 5 Luxury sedan - which we were able to take across the border without any worries about documentation or coverage. If you're keen on embarking on your own adventure (whether in Singapore or across the border), head on over to their website to find your dream ride right now!

Here are a few other articles that may interest you!

Big Test: Can you drive to KL with just the SP app?

Seven days and 2,260km from Bangkok to SG in an EV

A battery-powered drive from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur