Since 2016 REKA has built, tested and shown autonomous vehicles in Malaysia. This is the physical record: the cars, the photographs, the press, and what each stage taught us.
Every milestone carries its source: a dated document you can open, or REKA’s own record where the documents are still to follow.
Photographs from REKA’s own archive, captioned with what each one shows. Where a date or place is not yet confirmed, the caption says so.
Captions follow the archive’s own notes. Anything we cannot yet confirm is left out.
Each folder holds what happened, where it is documented, and how sure we are.
The first car, CRETA MK I, was a Proton Waja. It saw the road through one webcam, while motors, servos and REKA’s own electronics, including its RIG board, turned the wheel and worked the pedals. By the end of 2016 it had driven from Melaka to Kuala Lumpur on the PLUS Highway with no one in the driver’s seat: Malaysia’s first self-driving car, and the first in Southeast Asia on public highways.
Source: the CRETA case study
The car was shown at the Kuala Lumpur Engineering and Science Fair, and covered that year by Bernama TV and Harian Metro.
Source: REKA’s press archive, 2016
MK II (mid-2017), a Proton Inspira courtesy of MIDA, carried one puck LiDAR and two webcams. MK III, in two versions, was two Proton Perdanas: a maroon one lent by NanoMalaysia Berhad and a white one from MARA, each with at least two puck LiDARs, two side radars and three cameras. None of the cars was built for drive-by-wire, so each was automated with motors, servos and custom electronics; on MK III REKA also reverse engineered the braking and acceleration.
IMBiG helped with metal fabrication, motors and actuation; Kolej MARA Masjid Tanah lent workshop space, tools and expertise from its automotive department; Elmlab provided GPU computing and its electronics maker lab in Beranang.
Source: the case study and REKA press release, 16 October 2017
October 2017 · Bukit Jalil
CRETA on show at the National Innovation and Creative Economy Expo, with MARA.
November 2017
Members of the public rode in the retrofitted car at the Malaysia Autoshow, in collaboration with MARii. The same month REKA showed its self-driving technology at the Kuala Lumpur International Automotive Symposium.
Source: press archive: Autoshow.com.my, 7 November; Motion Digest, 27 November
REKA moved most of its research to software, AI and data, while the autonomous-vehicle work carried on with a team working on its own direction. The release named what stood in the way:
“Regulations, infrastructures and investments are some of the foundations that REKA will be addressing first rather than the technology itself.”
Source: REKA press release, 2 May 2018
An engagement on autonomous systems for port operations in Singapore.
From 2021 REKA built on Autoware, the open-source autonomous-driving stack, so that every layer can be inspected and replaced.
Source: the case study
March 2022
A memorandum of understanding to co-develop autonomous-vehicle technology, covering connectivity and teleoperation.
Source: New Straits Times, March 2022
May 2023
An autonomous test vehicle shown with MARii, REKA’s main stakeholder for the project, after test runs on a dedicated route in Cyberjaya.
Source: REKA article, 19 May 2023
REKA joined the Autoware Foundation as a member.
Source: the Autoware Foundation’s announcement and REKA’s member profile
4 July 2024 · Yogyakarta, Indonesia
The co-founder took part by invitation, as a Malaysian industry expert and panel discussant, in a workshop on a regulatory pilot space to facilitate cross-border digital data flow for self-driving cars in ASEAN. It was organised by PUSTRAL UGM, the transport and logistics studies centre at Universitas Gadjah Mada, with an Indonesian ministry.
Today the work starts where autonomy can already run and pay: yards, ports, farms and fixed routes. The method, the stack and the operating domain are in the Lab.
Three lessons that came out of the cars, each in the words of the record.
CRETA was not a purpose-built vehicle or an imported platform. The question was whether reliable autonomy could be engineered with what was to hand, in the conditions Malaysian roads actually present.
By 2018 the barriers were plain: regulation, infrastructure, investment and adoption. That is why a regional conversation about pilot spaces matters as much as a better planner.
Rather than chase drive-anywhere, define where the machine operates, who can step in and how it stops safely. Then widen the boundary on evidence.