KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia has built a solid reputation over four decades as a reliable manufacturer of products ranging from semiconductors to automobiles — even producing a “national car” in 1985 through cooperation with Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors.
And while the country was the first in ASEAN to achieve that milestone, it has fallen behind in innovation and ranks as the region’s third largest automotive industry after Indonesia and Thailand. Now it finds itself playing catch-up in the fast-changing world of electric vehicles, where technology, resource-rich countries, financing and big corporate names dominate the landscape.