BANGKOK : Thailand's Siam Motors partnered with Nissan Motors in 1962 with a factory that rolled out four cars a day, leading to a profitable, decades-long relationship with Japanese companies that transformed it from a car dealer to an automotive pioneer.
"EVs will be a nice pocket of growth," he said."There is a market growing for that, and we want to capture the growth." Thailand is Southeast Asia's largest car producer and exporter, and its second-largest sales market after Indonesia. Japanese automakers are so dominant that for decades they have treated it almost as an extension of their home market. But China surpassed Japan as Thailand's top foreign investor last year, boosted by BYD's investment in a new plant set to start up in 2024, amid concerted efforts by Thai officials to draw Chinese EV producers.
Of the nearly 850,000 new cars registered in Thailand last year, only around 1 per cent were EVs, according to government data. But between January and April this year, that proportion rose to more than 6 per cent. Hajime Yamamoto, a principal at Nomura Research Institute's consulting division in Thailand, said Chinese brands could take at least 15 per centage points of share from Japan over the next decade by delivering affordable EVs.Toyota, which alongside its group companies has invested nearly $7 billion in Thailand over the last decade and employs some 275,000 people, told Reuters in a statement that it is considering EV production in the country - its first official confirmation.
Thailand's pitch to Chinese EV makers has been its existing supply base – built largely for Japanese automakers – and readiness to provide incentives.