Category: News/ Events
12th Malaysia Plan: What you need to know about the 2050 carbon neutral goal and other green measures
Posted on September 28, 2021 by cna
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Monday (Sep 27) tabled the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) in parliament, with a pledge for Malaysia to “become a carbon neutral country by 2050 at the earliest” listed alongside other measures to accelerate green growth.
In his parliamentary speech, he said although Malaysia only contributes 0.7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the government would continue to fulfil its commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emission intensity of GDP by 45 per cent by 2030.
This would be based on the emission intensity of GDP in 2005, in line with the Paris Agreement in 2015. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of a country’s emission to the economic value it generates.
“Today I am giving my commitment that Malaysia will become a carbon neutral country by 2050 at the earliest,” Mr Ismail Sabri said on Monday.
“Other details for carbon reduction measures will be announced after the strategic long-term review of the low-carbon development strategies has been finalised by the end of 2022,” he added.
Carbon neutrality means that any carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is balanced by an equivalent amount being removed from it.
On paper, Malaysia’s carbon neutrality pledge appears to be the most ambitious in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia has pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2060, while Thailand said that it is targeting to achieve carbon neutrality by 2065 to 2070.
Meanwhile, Singapore has announced that it would halve its 2030 peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and to achieve net zero emissions “as soon as viable” in the second half of the century.
In tandem with Malaysia’s 2050 carbon neutrality aim, various policies to accelerate green growth would be put in place. Here are the key announcements:
NO NEW COAL POWER PLANTS
The prime minister pledged that the government would no longer build new coal-fired power plants.
He added that a comprehensive National Energy Policy would soon be introduced to provide a long-term strategic direction to support the aspirations of a carbon neutral nation.
“Cleaner electricity generation will be implemented through the operation of several gas power plants in Peninsular Malaysia to replace coal-fired power plants,” he said.
A law related to energy efficiency and conservation would be introduced to regulate energy consumption by high-intensity consumers in the industrial and commercial sectors, Mr Ismail Sabri said.
Renewable energy generation from solar, biomass and biogas is targeted to increase to 31 per cent of the total installed capacity in the country by 2025, he said.
Additionally, a total of 120 cities are expected to achieve sustainable city status by 2025.
CARBON PRICING
Mr Ismail Sabri said that economic instruments such as carbon pricing and carbon tax would be implemented. He did not go into the details.
Earlier this month, Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man was quoted as saying by Bernama that a Domestic Emissions Trading Scheme (DETS) was being developed by the Environment and Water Ministry.
He said that the development of the trading scheme would be carried out jointly with the Finance Ministry, Bursa Malaysia and other stakeholders.
The minister said the government planned to implement DETS in phases and a single business platform would be developed.
State government authorities and the private sector could leverage DETS to execute carbon credit transactions at the domestic level. In comparison, trading in the international market would entail a high cost of transaction and more stringent technical requirements, he said, according to the Bernama report.
Emissions trading, as set out in Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries that have emission units to spare – emissions permitted to them but not utilised – to sell this excess capacity to countries that are over their targets.
Plans for a new global carbon exchange and marketplace that will be headquartered in Singapore have recently been unveiled.
Among other carbon pricing approaches, a tax may also be levied on greenhouse gas emissions in order to encourage polluters to reduce the combustion of fossil fuels.
In the case of Singapore for instance, it has imposed a carbon tax rate of S$5 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2023. This is set to be increased in the future.
DEVELOPING ELECTRIC VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY
The Malaysian government would also give priority to the development of the energy-efficient vehicles (EEV) production industry to support environmentally friendly mobility initiatives, according to the prime minister.
Last week, Senior Minister Azmin Ali said in parliament that in order to support the electric vehicles (EV) ecosystem in the country, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was identifying new strategies to promote the industry to investors.
The strategies included introducing a consumer-focused incentive package to attract investments into the EV ecosystem, he said, according to the Edge Markets.
“This measure is expected to encourage investments in the production of EVs or their components and infrastructure support, including EV charging stations, as well as to drive consumer demand for EV vehicles,” he said.
BLUE ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT
Mr Ismail Sabri also said that the government would introduce a blue economic blueprint to determine the development direction of coastal and marine areas.
According to a 2015 report by Malaysia’s National Hydraulic Research Institute (Nahrim), sea levels have been rising by between 0.2mm and 4.4mm annually in the country since 2010 due to climate change.
Several projects under the flood mitigation programme, integrated river basin management, coastal erosion control as well as flood forecasting and warning at a cost of RM16 billion (US$3.82 billion) would be implemented under the 12MP and 13MP, the prime minister added.
An ecological fiscal transfer mechanism would also be improved to support the state government’s efforts in conserving the forest areas, he said. “Sanctuaries for endangered wildlife such as tigers, tapir and elephants will be upgraded for conservation purposes.”
Source: AGENCIES/aw
‘Believe in science’: Forecasts of troubling extremes for Southeast Asia in IPCC report prompt calls for concerted climate action.
Posted on August 20, 2021 by Jack Board (Channel News Asia)
BANGKOK: The troubling impacts of climate change forecasted for Southeast Asia should be a strong impetus for a united effort to tackle the issue, some of the region’s top scientists say.
The Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released this month, provided the most detailed summary of climate change literature in years and a stark warning to humanity about the risks of inaction.
Unless excessive global warming is reined in by mid-century, Southeast Asia will experience a range of worsening conditions and disasters, including dangerous heat waves, intense rain events, powerful tropical cyclones and coastal cities inundated by rising sea levels.
Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is already locked in, but there are worse scenarios down the line, depending on the pathways taken by the world’s governments and major polluters.
The report’s conclusions should give more clear evidence for the need to take drastic actions in this region, experts say.
“The findings indicate that we’re a region that should be concerned. We’re highly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. Hopefully, this assessment report has given enough information to policymakers to act upon,” said Faye Abigail Cruz, a lead author of the IPCC report and head of the Regional Climate Systems Research Group at Manila Observatory.
“Climate change is something we experience every day. The report gives us an explanation for what’s been happening and why it’s been happening.
“The report shows that our actions before, and our ongoing actions, have caused this observed warming and how this has resulted in the change of climate that we’re experiencing, especially the extremes. You can see the possible futures laid out. It’s up to us to decide which future we want,” she said.
“What’s needed? The IPCC is unequivocal. From a science perspective, the only way to reduce excessive warming beyond Paris, is net zero,” said Winston Chow, associate professor of Science, Technology and Society at Singapore Management University (SMU) and a contributing author to the report.
A RANGE OF CLIMATE IMPACTS FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA
This IPCC report, more than any previous iteration, focused on the regional impacts of climate change. It draws upon the sizeable research by scientists in Southeast Asia over recent years to paint a vivid picture of how carbon emissions are irreversibly altering this part of the planet.
Southeast Asia, with its broad geography and unique weather systems, will see some countries being affected by climate change in different ways as compared to others. But there are common themes, the report concludes.
- Heat: Extreme heat events have become more common in the last century and are expected to increase across all of Asia, even under the best-case scenario emissions pathway. Under worse scenarios, dangerous heat levels above 41 degrees Celsius could be experienced hundreds of days each year by the end of the century. “That has compound effects together with dry periods that could be more frequent. Hot plus dry equals forest fires,” Chow said. Nightime temperatures will also increase and the number of cold days and nights will decrease.
- Rainfall and floods: Heavy rainfall will become more intense and frequent right across Asia. It means river basin flooding will change and become more costly, especially to rapidly urbanising cities.
The evidence remains unclear and trends inconsistent about future droughts. But the report makes clear that humans have had a “profound effect” on the flow of rivers and drought conditions, due to the building of reservoirs and water extraction.
- Sea levels: Sea levels around the region have increased faster than the global average and will continue around Asia, causing more coastal areas to flood. At the same time, low-lying areas like megacities Bangkok and Jakarta, as well as the Mekong Delta, are sinking, exacerbating the impacts in delta areas. The region’s cities are among the most vulnerable in the world. Once in a 100 year flood events could be happening every year by 2100. Coastline erosion will be widespread, and under a moderate climate model, shoreline retreats could reach up to 300m along Southeast Asia’s sandy coastlines by the end of the century. There is high confidence that marine heatwaves, which can have severe impacts on biodiversity, will increase in frequency.
“It’s clear that natural variability alone cannot explain these events that we’ve been seeing. For every additional degree of warming that it’s in the pipeline, the odds are for more frequent and more extreme hazards to happen,” said Chow of SMU. “My takeaway is that people are fixated on the global temperature metric. It’s the extreme events linked to the global temperature metric that everyone in Southeast Asia should look out for.”
TIME FOR ACTION
Only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions as early as possible can the planet divert from some of the most alarming possible outcomes in the future.
Countries in Southeast Asia have varying commitments to do their part, but implementation of those plans have generally been slow and insufficient so far, based on analysis by Climate Action Tracker.
Climate scientists say this IPCC report will provide a blueprint for governments, to not only understand the problem in more detail but to negotiate greater cooperation and action.
“I hope the latest findings and evidence in the report will be taken seriously by the region. We provide the politicians with the evidence they need to make decisions,” said Ngo Duc Thanh, associate professor at the University of Science & Technology of Hanoi and an IPCC lead author.
“People in Southeast Asia should care about this report, because the report contains the latest findings and key messages that are important, in my opinion, to the life and development of mankind globally,” he said.
Upcoming global talks at COP26 in Glasgow are expected to sharpen the focus on national climate ambitions, issues of climate justice and the distribution and sharing of financial resources.
It is imperative that more progress is made, Chow said, noting that fleet-footed businesses and financial institutions around the region are already making a difference in pushing for emissions reductions.
“The problem is this window of opportunity is shrinking rapidly. For every year of inaction and non-reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the slope will get steeper and steeper until there comes a cliff and we will have to deal with that reckoning when it comes,” he said.
“The technologies are available. The political will and policies that can enable net zero at a large enough scale, widespread across high emitting countries, is still not there yet. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
Still, the latest raft of warnings from the IPCC could be more evidence that a tipping point on fast-tracked climate action, including in Southeast Asia is close.
“Some governments can be agnostic about climate change. This is the dilemma we face around the world right now. People say, maybe it’s not happening in my backyard, I don’t care,” said Edvin Aldrian, a professor of Meteorology and Climatology at BPPT Indonesia and vice-chair of IPCC Working Group I.
“Our region is one of the most densely populated parts of the world. Later on, people will realise that we cannot work alone to make things happen faster. I believe we have the power. I believe in science.”
How to Win the War on Car Idling
Posted on August 10, 2021 by John Surico ( Bloomberg)
Air-pollution laws, enforcement sprees and educational campaigns haven’t worked. What will it take to make drivers shut off their engines when they’re parked?
The episode provided some memorably insane visuals, and soon after, billboards of Idol and the slogan emerged around the city. But then the pandemic crashed into New York City, and the War on Idling was quickly overshadowed. Anyone who walks down the streets of the city today knows who won.
Look around anywhere in the sweltering summer of 2021 and you’ll probably see someone sitting in their car, parked, with fumes rising from the exhaust. Idling is not just a New York problem: It’s a global phenomenon. Wherever there are cars, there are drivers cocooned in running vehicles, often immersed in their smartphones, seemingly oblivious to the internal combustion engine rumbling pointlessly a few feet away.
Call it a crisis of habit or negligence. Drivers who pull over in a “No Standing” zone — like in front of a fire hydrant or bus stop — are common culprits. Cab drivers, cops, and moms and dads waiting in school pick-up lines are notorious idlers, as are delivery trucks making stops, the number of which continues to soar with pandemic-era e-commerce. Some idling is based on the now-outdated understanding that you need to “warm up” a cold engine, especially in the winter, for several minutes. Long-haul truckers that lack auxiliary power units often must run their diesels all night to heat or cool their cabs as they sleep, a practice that can burn almost 2 gallons of fuel an hour. State and local laws that ban idling after several minutes are widespread, but they’re almost universally flouted, as headlines repeatedly show.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heavy- and light-duty vehicles waste 6 billion gallons of fuel each year through idling. Half of those offenders are private vehicles, which together add about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year. If idling stopped tomorrow, it’d be the equivalent of taking 5 million vehicles off the road. A 2009 paper said that idling alone made up 1.6% of America’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The abundant negative externalities of the practice have taken on new urgency amid the many climate-related crises of the last year. Beyond its carbon toll, idling contributes to air pollution, an increasingly prominent environmental justice issue as more researchers look into the links between Covid-19 and local air quality. And it’s a powerful driver of the urban heat island effect — next time you want to be miserable, walk past a line of idling cars on a hot day and marvel at the volume of heat drivers pump out as they run what are essentially 300-horsepower gas-powered personal air conditioners.
On top of everything else, it’s bad for your engine.
When New York Magazine’s David Wallace-Wells wrote, in his book The Uninhabitable Earth, that we are “a civilization enclosing itself in a gaseous suicide, a running car in a sealed garage,” it’s hard not to think of idling as an all-too-literal manifestation of his metaphor — a constant reminder of humanity’s refusal to make even the tiniest of behavioral adjustments (just reach down and turn a key!) to save itself. As far as climate change mitigation goes, getting people to stop idling is just about the lowest of the low-hanging fruit.
But most anti-idling initiatives boil down to education campaigns, pledges, and a few signs. And in general, they’ve failed miserably. So how can cities curb this cursed practice once and for all?
If you dig into this topic, you will quickly come across George Pakenham. The Wall Street banker is a “man on emission,” as the 2012 autobiographical documentary Idle Threat, called him. Since 2005, Pakenham has been politely asking thousands of drivers of idling commercial vehicles around Manhattan to shut off their engine, handing them a simple business card with the legal fines attached. He kept an Excel spreadsheet of every encounter, with what he says was an 80% success rate. (I’ve had similar luck when I attempt to follow his example.)
About two months into his anti-idling odyssey, Pakenham rapped on the window of an idling limousine. “The driver told me, ‘Leave me alone, I’m a cop, I’m on watch, go away,’” Pakenham says. As he walked away, the driver yelled out. “You know, there’s a law against what I’m doing. I don’t know what the law is, but I know there’s a law against it. And if you’re so damn interested in it, why don’t you pursue it?”
That is how Pakenham, who labels himself a “vigilante” for better air, discovered what is the case for many cities: There has been an idling law on the books since the 1970s, but it is barely enforced. “Mostly symbolic,” as one local newspaper in Utah described it, could be a term widely used.
Since idling is technically a moving violation, it’s often not under the jurisdiction of traffic enforcement agents (TEAs). But since it’s also an environmental issue, it is overseen by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which doesn’t have many officers walking the streets. Thus, idling is left in an enforcement purgatory; in many cities, barely any tickets for idling are written each year.
With a boost from the Environmental Defense Fund, Pakenham’s push spurred media coverage and helped lead then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg to impose stricter limits on idling, particularly near schools, where children are more vulnerable to air pollution. (Michael R. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg CityLab.) Still, the laws “lacked teeth,” says Pakenham. New Yorkers (including the mayor) continued to idle.
But in 2018, the city’s anti-idling movement notched a major victory: New York started what’s known as the Citizens Air Complaint Program, the first of its kind in the nation. Essentially, citizens are invited to submit evidence of a truck or bus idling to DEP in exchange for a quarter slice of the fine, should one be issued. (Passenger vehicles are notably given a pass.)
Before the law, only 24 idling-related summonses were given in 2017; in 2018, after the law was enacted, that number jumped to 1,038. Nearly 20,000 complaints have now been filed from about 2,500 people, 90% of which have resulted in summonses. Pakenham himself has made more than $10,000 in the hustle, he said. He’s now part of a group of nearly 40 people who call themselves Idle Warriors; they submit the bulk of the videos. “They’re very ardent, they’re very professional, and they’re very earnest in making this thing work,” he says.
One member told me that an awareness campaign like “Billy Never Idles” isn’t sufficient. “Education has been tried for a long time, but until there’s a penalty associated, it’s either a) I don’t care; or b) I’m just waiting for someone,” the member told me. (They requested anonymity, because they have received occasional threats from angry drivers.) “It’s a tragedy of the commons, really.”
These kinds of citizen watchdogs are needed, advocates say, because they outlast the enforcement spikes that some cities do. When I asked Pakenham if he thought that this was the best system — having residents report infractions, instead of the government — he bristled. “It’s absurd that it’s on citizens!” he said. The cash prize made it digestible, he added, but more institutional support was needed. The city was considering a smartphone app that would streamline submissions, he said, but talks have stalled since Covid. (Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia have since launched similar programs using various apps, but without the financial incentives.)
Calls to allow TEAs to enforce idling have been opposed by the New York Police Department, which cites logistical reasons; with the law as is, an officer would have to wait around three minutes before writing a ticket. Worries of confrontation have also been flagged, as police officials say traffic enforcement agents are more likely to be victims of assault than uniformed officers. A similar argument doomed a citizen complaint program for illegal parking in January. But this question comes at a time when advocates and policymakers are revisiting the role of police in traffic enforcement writ large, thanks to racial discrimination issues and other problems. Is it worth giving law enforcement more responsibilities? Or should a new approach be taken altogether?
To try to answer this, I reached out to Jeff Novich, who analyzed all 20,000 citizen complaints about idling in New York City this last June in a Medium post. Novich created the Reported app, which allows any user in New York to report a car that is blocking crosswalks, parked illegally, or driving recklessly. (It doesn’t come with a cash prize.) “Citizens should always feel empowered to file complaints on drivers and be able to act on them without getting police involved,” he argued. “But that’s a fallback.”
Like many transit advocates, Novich is skeptical that the police, even if further involved, would help solve the problem. “As a tax-paying resident, I should feel confident that enforcement is being done effectively,” he said. “And I don’t feel that way at all.” The rampant use of illegal placards and official vehicles that are parked illegally (not just in New York) lends to his cause.
Instead, Novich said that cities should explore automated enforcement. While no camera currently exists for idling, Novich said he can imagine one that identifies and timestamps how long a vehicle is in a zone, similar to the parking enforcement system in Amsterdam. Thermographic cameras, for heat, are another option.
“At the very least, we have tech that could get us more accurate survey data to know what’s going on,” Novich said.
There’s another kind of technology that promises to turn the tide in the war on idling — eventually. When every internal combustion-powered car and truck on the road is replaced by a battery-powered electric vehicle (EV), the phenomenon disappears.
Of course, that date still appears as a hazy oasis; EVs make up less than 5% of all new U.S. car sales. But in other countries, adoption is picking up speed. President Joe Biden is pushing to put as many EVs into U.S. garages as possible by 2030, and automakers are lining up to rid themselves of gas-fueled cars in the coming years.
Many newer cars, especially hybrids and low-emission vehicles (LEVs), already boast an anti-idling feature — stop-start systems that automatically shut the engine down when the car is in gear but not moving, to save gas. (Listen next time you’re at a stoplight: a newer car will shut off entirely before cranking back up when the light turns green.) But these systems typically don’t operate when the vehicle is idling in “park” for extended periods. And many owners are sufficiently annoyed by the feature to disable it.
Other forms of vehicle technology focus on nudging driver behavior.
“It’s all about the data,” says Kurt Wyman, the North America vice president of sales for Teletrac Navman, a telematics company that helps public and private organizations monitor their fleets. “If you capture data, you can start influencing the behavior.”
In one city case study, the company tracked idling on police vehicles and found that, on average, a police car idled 20 minutes a day. “Just look at the raw numbers,” he said. “If I have a thousand vehicles and every one is idling 20 minutes a day, if you just took two minutes off each one, that’s probably tens of thousands of dollars of cost savings.” When they analyzed the data, they determined where officers were idling and who the biggest offenders were. The system, says Wyman, “paid for itself in months.”
The same results have been found in other cities that invested in anti-idling technology. Geography and other factors need to be considered, Wyman notes: Police cars in Phoenix during the summer may use their engines differently than those in Detroit in the winter. And he recommends sharing data regularly and extensively with municipal workers. One popular approach is gamification. Workers who turn off get a reward — a tactic commonly used in the car insurance industry. It’s a supportive, rather than punitive, approach. “That encourages them to use the electronic lock,” Wyman said, “rather than seeing it as Big Brother.”
Cities electrifying their municipal fleets or cracking down on idling join others in the private sector. With a growing emphasis on “last mile” logistics, or the trip from a distribution hub to your front door, Wyman said private operators are showing heightened interest in reducing fuel costs and climate impacts. For fleets as large as, say, Amazon — which is planning to put 100,000 electric delivery vans on the road by 2030 — anything that reduces costs and negative externalities like air pollution and carbon emissions offers a competitive advantage. “They’re paying attention,” Wyman says.
Local authorities have the power to penalize drivers for idling in the U.K., but Jack Alexander, a project officer with Idling Action London, says that working with those authorities made issues with existing legislation come to light. The fine itself — usually 20 pounds — isn’t really enough to make a difference. Additionally, the officer must ask a driver to switch off their engine before issuing a fine. “In practice, this means fines are issued for failing to cooperate with an enforcing officer instead of for an idling contravention,” Alexander says.
So even though there were an estimated 13,000 interactions last year between officers and drivers in participating authorities, few fines were issued. And the lack of clarity over how to enforce the law makes it confusing for drivers, too. “Ultimately, whilst we would welcome higher fines and fewer legal barriers to enforcement, we believe that enforcement alone is insufficient in driving behavior change around engine idling,” Alexander says.
That’s where the Idling Action campaign comes in. Local authorities that sign onto the educational campaign are instructed to train the contractors they hire in anti-idling behavior and obtain pledges for sticking to it. A number of major contractors — including Veolia, the French-based transportation services multinational — have since complied.
The effectiveness of anti-idling campaigns has been the subject of psychological study by U.K. researchers. One 2017 study looked at drivers at a Canterbury rail crossing who were presented with a spooky-looking sign illustrated with a pair of staring eyeballs and the message “Think of yourself: When barriers are down switch off your engine.” They found that this appeal to a driver’s “private self” activated a kind of internal surveillance and proved more effective than standard warning placards.
But even if drivers don’t self-enforce, London has a secret weapon. The Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), introduced by Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019, charges drivers with older, more-polluting cars an additional fee to enter the city’s central district (on top of a congestion fee). According to the city’s figures, the program removes nearly 14,000 cars from the road every day and reduces air pollution in the area by a third. In October, ULEZ will expand to a size 18 times larger than the current area.
With backing from Westminster, Bath and Birmingham now also have “Clean Air Zones,” and more cities are set to follow in the coming years. What the mechanism effectively does is force companies and private individuals to invest in cleaner, newer vehicles, which are less likely to idle.
Pakenham’s one-man fight against idling in the U.S. — and his successful monetization of it — has stirred calls for a similar citizen bounty program in the U.K., too. In the times we’ve spoken, Pakenham has voiced frustration that more cities haven’t shown a “real curiosity” in taking on idling. But he’s hoping that the arrival of more aggressive policies, paired with growing awareness of the impact of our collective carbon footprint, will finally get folks to pay attention.
“Fundamentally, this is a public health issue. The bulk of air pollution in all of America is from the internal combustion engine. That’s appalling,” he says. “This is a solution. Nobody likes to go into their wallet, rich man or poor. Do it once, and you’re not going to do it again.”
AIC featured in Truck and Bus News (August 2021 edition)
Posted on August 6, 2021 by Mary Tang (Truck & Bus News)
Kineflux’s Revolutionary Active Intercooler Technology - Optimising Fleet Operations and Environmental Performance
As a technology company that focuses on the automotive green technology landscape, Kineflux
Sdn Bhd has successfully captured the industry’s attention with its patented Active Intercooler (AIC) technology.
“Our proven AIC technology can improve fuel efficiency by offering better and cleaner engine combustion which contributes to a lower daily operational expenditure. The technology was inspired by the rising fuel cost. While we are burning a hole in our pockets, the carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles are contributing to climate change and global warming. The intention of fuelsaving and caring for the environment has led to the birth of AIC technology,” said Founder and Chief Executive Officer Timothy Tay.
Starting off as a research and development company, Tay explained Kineflux spent a few years enhancing its research in green technology. With the grant funds from the SME Corporation Malaysia, they were able to concentrate and speed up the innovation process. Tay then partnered with two seasoned and serial entrepreneurs, Ken Low and Philip Yong. Together they made their technologically innovative research known to the world.
“We are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ryght Holdings Pte Ltd, which is based in Singapore. Kineflux has filed and granted with patents for its AIC technology in various countries in the region, and these patents are our primary assets. With certification testing from a national testing body like SIRIM (Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia) as well as a collaboration with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kineflux has taken a further step in commercialising the product for the market. In 2019, Kineflux was granted the prestige MyHijau mark from the Malaysia Green Technology Corporation for its product because of its contribution to a greener environment.”
How AIC Technology Works
Offering a detailed explanation of how the AIC technology works, Tay explained that the concept enhances the fundamentals of thermodynamics on the internal combustion engine in an innovative way. It facilitates effective engine combustion and relieves engine heat stress.
The AIC device, he pointed out intercepts the airflow from the outside of the vehicle to the air-inlet of the engine. The air flowing through the AIC device will be mixed with coolness harvested from the air condition coolant to produce a constant cold airflow for engine combustion.
This cooler and condensed air with a higher quality of oxygen will facilitate more effective engine combustion, the power source of a vehicle.
By deep-diving into the whole business plan, he revealed that the organisation that could benefit most from their solution would be fleet operators. The increase of e-commerce activities during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the movement control order (MCO) has boosted the last-mile delivery activity of vans and trucks. Other targeted customers include bus operators and truck and bus manufacturers who strive to lower fuel costs. “Kineflux’s innovative automotive
solutions can improve vehicle performance by helping the vehicle achieve close to perfect engine combustion, maximising the usage and increasing the savings on fuel due to the efficiency of the engine. Thus, the transporters would gain more mileage with lesser
fuel by using our technology whilst cutting down on emissions. The savings could be converted into a higher profit margin.”
Small Add-on, Huge Benefits
“Deploying Kineflux’s AIC technology is a small add-on with huge benefits for fleet operators. The two main value propositions that AIC provides are fuel efficiency and greener emission. Fuel efficiency can be improved between the range of 10 per cent to 20 per cent, depending on the dual condition of driving style and road conditions. Greener emissions are achieved as Nitrogen Oxides (NOX) and Carbon Monoxide (CO) emissions per kilometre are reduced by more than 50 per cent.”
Tay added that the company’s AIC has been tested and verified for its green credentials by SIRIM together with the Automotive Development Centre of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia through using the latest testing equipment. “It has been proven that our product
offers complete engine combustion and is more effective in lowering harmful emissions by up to 50 per cent. As well as lowering harmful emissions, he noted that it also improves the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine and contributes to less fuel consumption by 10 per cent to 20 per cent, while generating more power.
Apart from those factors, Tay said, AIC also helps to increase a vehicle’s torque by an average of 17 per cent. This, he pointed out improves the performance and boosts the haulage power of the vehicle. Furthermore, better performance and less heat stress will contribute to longer vehicle life and ultimately translate to better profit.
“AIC is compatible with both diesel and petrol internal combustion vehicles, from taxis, vans, busses, big trucks through to prime movers. Engineered for easy and non-intrusive installation,
the technology is installed in a way so that there are no major modifications to the vehicle. It has also been recognised by the Road Transport Department of Malaysia (JPJ) as an accessory.
The product is also fabricated using the latest industrial manufacturing equipment.”
With the recent global surge in prices of raw materials and resources, almost all industries are affected, including the logistics and transportation sector. The savings factor that Kineflux
offers through their AIC technology, he noted can help logistics companies save thousands based on their monthly fuel consumption and at the same time create a greener fleet for the environment. The additional monthly savings on fuel can be used for other operational expenses such as proper maintenance of company’s fleet and capital expenditure (CAPEX) including global positioning systems (GPS), mobile phones and web-based applications for close monitoring operations.
“We at Kineflux understand that every organisation has different types of vehicles and purposes. To begin with, we first conduct a feasibility study on our customer’s needs. This will allow us to propose the right AIC model according to the fleet to optimise the engine combustion that will benefit the customer’s fleet of vehicles. For the larger fleet companies who require a bigger initial investment, we will provide a business case with cost estimates, return on investment (ROI) and benefits over time,” said Tay.
In terms of maintenance and warranty, the company covers its customer with a 1 year warranty for any manufacturing or design defects with an option of extended warranty, Tay explained. Preventive maintenance packages are available on an annual basis for customers to ensure their peace of mind.
Going forward, he said, they will continue to invest in research and development to come up with technological breakthroughs, with new products for the industry, as well as strive to provide the best aftersales support for their customers.
Tay also took the opportunity to announce that the company is having a special AIC promotion, on a first come first serve basis. He encourages those who are interested to fill in the simple Google form and submit it to the company. Click the link below or scan the QR code for the form and details: https://forms.gle/PPguTXFme-F9vX6iT6
