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In the roadmaps of the automotive industry, the electric vehicle (EV) is regarded as a crucial technology for the future of automotive power systems. The EV has become a top priority of major global car manufacturers and is expected to disrupt the road transportation sector. In Malaysia and Indonesia, EVs just started as an important force. However, in Malaysia, the lack of EV infrastructure, along with its strong dependency on fossil fuels, poses an enormous challenge. The situation is very similar in Indonesia. Indonesia has huge potential as Southeast Asia’s largest vehicle market and a major nickel producer, an important EV battery ingredient. Therefore, this article addresses several critical issues in implementing EVs in Malaysia and Indonesia. In preparing this review, we have thoroughly selected very important EV keywords that are frequently asked. We have also interviewed some prominent figures in the field of EV to address the most critical aspects worth including in the paper. In doing so, we plan to provide content that will be beneficial not only to the academic world but also to the automotive industry in general. Firstly, a summary of the EV adoption scenario in each country was presented. Afterwards, the types of EVs and battery capacities available in both countries were explained. The next section focused on the adoption rate of EVs, followed by the discussion of EVs charging infrastructure. In addition to that, issues pertaining to vehicle tax credit were also addressed. The opportunities and challenges of EV were then addressed in depth before concluding remarks were given.

This work studies formation control of multiagent systems (MASs) where its formation size is scalable via a scaling factor (scalable formation). Past works on scalable formation are limited to either fixed undirected graph or fixed directed graph with p-rooted graph condition. This work proposes a new distributed algorithm for scalable formation based on a distributed observer to estimate agents' positions. The new algorithm results in a new matrix, a Laplacian matrix with additional diagonal terms, where the desired formation pattern is embedded in this diagonal terms. With the proposed algorithm, only spanning tree condition is needed as the necessary and sufficient condition to achieve the scalable formation. Numerical examples are shown to illustrate the proposed method.

Indonesia and Malaysia are currently holding prominent roles in the global palm oil market. Both countries are the top two palm oil producers in the world and have ambitious targets to increase the palm oil-based biodiesel mandate. In Indonesia, the current programme of blending 20 per cent palm oil into 80 per cent diesel (B20) increases to B30 in 2020. Likewise, Malaysia plans to increase its biodiesel mandate from B10 to B20 in 2020. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 has infected millions and brought the global economy to a near-deadlock. The effect is particularly severe in the fuel industry owing to movement restrictions and the historic drop in oil prices. Evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 on the biodiesel industry is crucial for policymakers but challenging as the pandemic has evolved with intense speed. This article aims to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the Indonesian and Malaysian biodiesel industry. In addition to that, a number of possible solutions to overcome the challenges were addressed and proposed. Despite severely affected by COVID-19, both Indonesia and Malaysia can use this momentum to improve and strengthen their biodiesel sector. Given its fiscal deficit, Indonesia should postpone its biodiesel blending mandate as the subsidy to support the programme can worsen the country’s financial stability. In Malaysia, where labour shortage is prevalent, modernising plantations with automated equipment, for instance, could potentially remove the dirty and dangerous stereotypes associated with plantation works, thus attracting more locals to work in the palm oil plantation and solving the labour shortage. This paper also briefly addresses the adoption of Industry 4.0 and Circular Economy for the palm oil biodiesel industry.