Fleet managers urged to blend AI, telematics and human insight

KUALA LUMPUR, 13 AUGUST 2026 —

Nazz Abdullah, founder and CEO of NAZZ&CO Media, told a Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) leadership session that future fleet strategy must merge artificial intelligence, telematics and frontline experience to cut costs and lift uptime.

For TNB, whose fleet underpins nationwide grid operations, the stakes are direct: any vehicle downtime raises repair bills, crew response times and grid-recovery speed, he said.

Predictive maintenance driven by AI and telematics shifts servicing from calendar cycles or breakdown fixes to early-warning alerts, cutting breakdowns and idle hours, Abdullah said. The technology is already running on major global fleets but remains uncommon in Malaysia, he added.

A question from the floor highlighted a second barrier to electrification in Malaysia: cheap RON95 fuel subsidies keep the total-cost-of-ownership equation for EVs sensitive for private users, despite the national push for energy transition, according to the session.

Connected-vehicle and telematics platforms are commercially available today, Abdullah said. The gap is not hardware but readiness—organisations that deploy them with clear human oversight will outperform rivals that rely on guesswork or static schedules, he said.

TNB’s own engineers and executives joined the discussion, underscoring how fleet performance now links to grid reliability, safety targets and the broader energy-transition roadmap, Abdullah said.

Malaysian fleets with more than 1,000 units should pilot predictive-maintenance modules in the next 12-18 months to quantify downtime savings against current maintenance budgets, he said.

Related: Tenaga Nasional