The Perodua Axia E, Malaysia’s cheapest new car at RM22,000 on-the-road before insurance, was launched on June 15. It’s essentially a re-introduction of the first-generation Axia, which has always been available in a bare-bones ‘driving school spec’ with a manual transmission. The current second-generation Axia starts from RM38,600 for the G.

The price reveal of the Axia E created quite a stir, with the RM22,000 RRP coming in lower than the 2022 price of RM24,090, before the old Axia was discontinued to make way for the current D74A Axia. Also, the price is the same for both Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah/Sarawak, a first for a Perodua model.

Turns out that the response was good, and the ready stock of the Axia E at launch flew off the yard in just two days. “Our recently launched Axia E was well received and our ready stock of 2,500 vehicles were completely distributed within 48 hours,” Perodua president and CEO Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Ahmad said when releasing the company’s first half of 2023 results.

Bear in mind that this isn’t a limited edition and the ‘Rahmah Spec’ Axia will continue to be available. At the launch, Perodua said that it plans to sell 1,500 units of the Axia E monthly, a total that includes individual owners as well as fleet sales.

“While we do not dictate who our customers are, we believe that having this model would be a welcome option by majority of Malaysians. The Axia E has been market tested and proven over years and we believe that this variant would serve its current role of giving motorcycle owners an opportunity to own a new car,” Zainal said last month at the launch.

“Based on our discussions with local financial institutions, we found that it only takes RM300 per month to pay the hire purchase cost of owning the Axia E. This is the same cost that would take for someone to buy a brand-new motorcycle on hire purchase,” he added.

The new Axia E is a lot like the version released in 2019, but with the face of the 2017 model. Granite Grey joins the usual Glittering Silver and Ivory White to make it three paint options. As before, you get 14-inch steel wheels, power windows, manual AC, two airbags, folding rear seats, Isofix child seat anchors and an analogue speedometer with a digital fuel gauge.

The list of things it doesn’t get include a rev counter, radio/speakers, central locking, remote locking, VSC and ABS, among other things. The powertrain is the familiar 1KR-VE 1.0L triple with 67 hp/91 Nm, paired to a five-speed manual. It’s a very kosong car, but you’d expect it to be for RM22k. At least you don’t have to manually wind down the windows!

Here’s some trivia. At RM22,000, today’s Axia E is actually cheaper than Perodua’s first car, the Kancil, which went on sale back in 1994 at around RM25,000. Shocking, isn’t it? Can you live with this level of basic? Full specs and details of the Axia E here.

GALLERY: 2023 Perodua Axia E