KUALA LUMPUR (July 13): Malaysia plans to start small-scale production of home-grown batteries for electric vehicles this month, Nikkei Asia reported on Monday.

The battery was developed at a cost of around RM20 million and will be produced by Gigafactory Malaysia, the Japanese newspaper reported. Gigafactory is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NanoMalaysia Bhd, which in turn is a unit under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

"We are on the verge of operationalising Malaysia's first local battery technology production factory," NanoMalaysia chief executive officer Rezal Khairi Ahmad said in an interview with Nikkei Asia.

The project is "likely the first of its kind in Asean. No other countries in the region are producing home-grown battery tech”, he was quoted as saying.

Batteries alone typically account for up to 40% of an electric vehicle’s price. Most electric vehicle batteries are made from lithium-ion, and China manufactured more than 80% of all batteries in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency.

However, Gigafactory Malaysia’s battery is based on nickel-manganese-cobalt battery chemistry, but is enhanced with graphene that could triple storage capacity, Rezal Khairi told Nikkei Asia, adding that megawatt-hour capacity is expected to begin at the earliest in September 2026.