Toyota: Not just BEVs, hydrogen to be a special interest for Malaysia, Perodua to be involved via CJPT

The Toyota Motor group, including its compact car subsidiary Daihatsu, and by the same extension, Daihatsu’s local partner Perodua, will be deepening its ties with Malaysian state of the Sarawak to develop a hydrogen economy further.

“The CJPT cooperation will be extended to Malaysia, via Daihatsu, to cooperate in the hydrogen space,” said Yoshiki Konishi, President of Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing, at the Future Mobility for Asia event ahead of tomorrow’s opening of the Japan Mobility Show.

CJPT (Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies Corporation) is an all-Japan commercial vehicle partnership to develop carbon neutral solutions for the logistics and SME sector. Established by Toyota, CJPT’s members include Isuzu, Suzuki, Daihatsu, and Hino.

Specifically in the small commercial vehicles segment, Konishi said an announcement regarding a CJPT project in Malaysia will be made soon, although he didn't provide further details.

He, however, mentioned that East Malaysia holds a lot of potential for hydrogen, an energy source that when generated from hydropower, which is abundant in Sarawak, is a renewable energy.

Konishi said this after CJPT’s successful establishment of a waste-to-fuel hydrogen generation facility in Thailand, established in partnership with the CP Group, one of the world’s largest food company.

The hydrogen fuel plant extracts biogas from farm waste, including smelly chicken manure, turning it into hydrogen fuel that can be used not just to power hydrogen fuel cell trucks, but also as a feed stock for the production of industrial chemicals.

Interestingly, the presentation slide shown by Konishi also implied this technology can be rolled out to all countries in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Petronas’ clean energy unit Gentari has already entered into two Strategic Collaboration Agreements (SCAs) with Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) and SEDC Energy Sdn Bhd (SEDC Energy) to deploy green hydrogen in the state.

Earlier today, Singapore's City Energy said it will conduct a feasibility study for a proposed pipeline to import ‘low carbon’ hydrogen from Malaysia’s Gentari.

Hydrogen is just one of the many carbon-neutral solutions offered by Toyota, under its technology-neutral Multi-pathway Strategy, which seeks to offer everything from hybrids, to battery EVs, to hydrogen fuel cells, to carbon neutral fuels, offering the best powertrain option for different groups of customers with different needs.