Lured by Thailand perks, China's EV makers face reality check

Business Times

02-05-2025

IT'S HARD to miss the aggressiveness of Chinese automakers in the Thai market on the drive from Suvarnabhumi Airport into Bangkok: huge billboards featuring BYD, Changan Auto, GAC, Great Wall Motor, SAIC MG and many other Chinese brands line the highways and roads.
And on the streets of the capital, Chinese car dealerships are often located steps away from the long-established showrooms of Japanese brands like Toyota and Honda.
Thai consumers now have more choices than ever and at attractive prices. This phenomenon followed a deluge of Chinese brands in the Thai market over the past three years, with at least nine automakers currently in the fray.
The influx has been driven by the Thai government's offer of generous industrial subsidies for electric vehicle (EV) purchases and production. This coincided with Chinese firms looking for new markets overseas amid intensifying competition at home, and the perception that Thailand was a prospective steppingstone for their global ambitions.
But the story has a caveat: The subsidy policies require Chinese carmakers to produce at least the same number of cars locally as they import, leading to a build-up of supply made at a relatively higher cost for a small market.
As a result, the local auto market has now become a reflection of its larger counterpart on the Chinese mainland – saturated with competing brands and dogged by fierce price competition. At the same time, the Thai market is experiencing a downturn, with consumers hobbled by high levels of household debt.
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Thailand's auto market sold 572,675 new cars in 2024 – down more than 25 per cent year-on-year – while pure EV sales accounted for fewer than 67,000 of that, according to Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) data.
'The current state of the Thai market has become a 'deep red ocean,'' said Shi Qingke, president of Great Wall Motor International.
Unseating the Japanese
For decades, the kingdom has been the undisputed playground of Japanese automakers. But Chinese rivals have been catching up fast with new models, and even getting creative to gain market share.
At the Bangkok International Motor Show in April, Great Wall Motor placed a smashed-up vehicle front and centre in its booth to show its cabin remained intact after the driver wrapped the car around a utility pole at high speed.
Another Chinese brand displayed its latest model clad in a bright pink cartoon design alongside a giant teddy bear to attract young consumers.
The result of these tactics: Almost every car displayed at the booths of Chinese brands – including Great Wall Motor, SAIC MG and Changan's Deepal – was surrounded by people. In contrast, the booths of Japanese and South Korean automakers like Mazda and Kia had few visitors, with numerous salespeople waiting idly with brochures.
On the list of top 10 brands by order volume at the show, Chinese brands occupied half the spots. BYD secured the top position with five-digit orders, decisively outselling Japan's Toyota Motor, a titan that had cultivated the market for generations.
Auto industry experts believe this was more than just a minor upset: it was a declaration that a new era has dawned.
The shift didn't happen overnight, but it accelerated over the past few years. Spurred by Thailand's generous new-energy vehicle (NEV) subsidy policies implemented from 2022, Chinese automakers like BYD and Neta Auto were early movers.
They were quickly followed by state-owned giants including Guangzhou Automobile Group and Chongqing Changan Automobile and Chery Automobile. At least 16 Chinese marques are now vying for a share of the local market, turning Bangkok's streets into a showcase of China's automotive ambitions.
Their primary weapon in this offensive is a combination of advanced technology and aggressive pricing. Chinese entrants flooded the market with EVs boasting features previously reserved for luxury segments – full LCD dashboards, smart infotainment systems, sleek designs and rapid charging capabilities.
Coupled with deep discounts, like BYD slashing nearly 40 per cent off its Dolphin model's initial launch price over the past two years, the value proposition became hard for Thai consumers to ignore.
The impact on the incumbents has been palpable. Japanese automaker Honda Motor, once a comfortable third in show orders, found itself eclipsed not only by BYD but also GAC and Changan. A total of 41 car manufacturers from around the world participated in the show.
Industry insiders noted a stark difference, with some suggesting Japanese models often feel 'two generations behind' in terms of standard features compared with their Chinese rivals, forcing a long-overdue reckoning for the established players in this crucial Southeast Asian battleground.
Toyota, despite retaining an overall market share as high as 38.5 per cent, saw its sales slide 17.1 per cent year-on-year in 2024 to 220,000 vehicles.
To counter the competition, Toyota in December announced a major investment plan, injecting 55 billion baht (S$2.15 billion) to expand hybrid vehicle production capacity, aiming to further consolidate its leadership position in the market.
Meanwhile, in late 2023, Honda became the first Japanese automaker to produce NEVs in the country when it began making pure electric cars at its factory in Prachinburi province in eastern Thailand.
However, due to sluggish local sales, Japanese firms have been forced to cut local production capacity. In July last year, Honda announced it would cease car production at its factory in Ayutthaya province by 2025, consolidating capacity at the Prachinburi site. Prior to this, Japanese automakers Suzuki and Subaru also announced the closure of their Thai factories.
Spoiled for choice
For Thai consumers, the flood of Chinese firms has also created a shift in local preference for NEVs, and within just a few years, the NEV market has become a veritable Chinese buffet.
Chinese EV brands have aggressively targeted the market with feature-rich EVs at price points that challenge the status quo.
Consumers previously choosing a mid-range Japanese sedan are now finding they can afford an EV boasting large touchscreens, sophisticated driver-assistance systems, and eye-catching designs, further enhanced by significant discounts and government subsidies that make the switch even more tempting.
Many Chinese brands' value-for-money models – priced at around 600,000 to 700,000 baht – now come standard with full LCD instrument panels and smart systems, not just high-end models, according to a source at SAIC MG. In contrast, Japanese cars priced over 1 million Thai baht often still feature small control screens and all-plastic interiors, the source added.
Beyond the initial sticker price and flashy tech, EVs also appeal to consumers for being cheaper to run. Liming, a Chinese national and long-term resident of Thailand, said charging his electric car at home costs roughly 80 per cent less per kilometer than fueling a comparable gasoline vehicle.
'Although gasoline prices in Thailand are slightly lower than in China, the cost per kilometer for a gasoline car is about 0.8 to 1 yuan (S$0.14 to S$0.18). My electric car costs about 0.8 yuan per kilowatt-hour to charge, which works out to less than 0.2 yuan per kilometer,' Liming said.
Wang Haoyong, head of GAC International South-east Asia, said that EVs also have annual maintenance costs that are over 50 per cent lower due to the absence of requirements like engine oil and transmission fluid replacements. In Thailand, where temperatures are always hot, EVs also don't suffer from range issues caused by low temperatures reducing the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries.
This combination of factors is resonating. The market share for pure EVs continued to climb last year, reaching nearly 12 per cent overall and significantly higher within the passenger car segment.
Chinese brands commanded an overwhelming 80 per cent slice of that pie and they are actively building momentum in this shift to electric. GAC International, for example, plans to build an intercity charging network centred around Bangkok, constructing 25 new charging stations this year.
Perils of subsidised growth
The current state of Thailand's auto industry is largely the result of a bold ambition harbored by the government: to transform itself into the EV production hub of South-east Asia. To kickstart this vision, Bangkok rolled out subsidy packages, starting with 'EV3.0' in June 2022 and its successor 'EV3.5', offering purchase incentives, consumption tax cuts and reduced import tariffs.
Perks under 'EV3.0' include reducing the NEV consumption tax from 8 per cent to 2 per cent, providing subsidies of up to 150,000 Thai baht per vehicle for pure electric cars priced below 2 million baht, and reducing import tariffs on pre-built vehicles by up to 40 percentage points.
This attracted a wave of investment, predominantly from Chinese automakers eager to establish a foothold and capitalise on the incentives.
However, this government generosity came with a significant string attached – a mandatory local production requirement.
Automakers benefiting from the subsidies, particularly under EV3.0, had to commit to producing EVs in Thailand equivalent to, or even exceeding, the number of vehicles they imported under the scheme. This seemingly logical policy, designed to build domestic capacity, appears to have moved faster than the market and set the stage for a potential crisis of oversupply.
The numbers paint a stark picture. Collectively, the major Chinese players like BYD, Changan, Chery, GAC, Great Wall Motor, Neta and SAIC-CP Motor (a joint venture between SAIC Motor and Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group), are building or operating factories with a combined potential annual capacity exceeding 550,000 vehicles.
Yet, new car sales in Thailand totaled just 572,000 units in 2024, a 26.2 per cent drop year-on-year, FTI data show.
As the Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand's president Yossapong Laoonual noted, capacity already 'far exceeds local market demand'.
Facing the obligation to produce locally into a shrinking, saturated market, intense price wars have erupted. Automakers are under pressure to clear inventory built to meet production quotas, often at thinning margins.
They are also grappling with the reality that manufacturing in Thailand is more expensive than in China. The struggle is exemplified by firms such as EV startup Neta, which is facing financial headwinds domestically while under pressure to meet Thai production targets or risk facing hefty penalties.
Newer Chinese automotive entrants – such as XPeng and Zhejiang Geely Holding's EV brand Zeekr – have opted for exporting fully built vehicles to minimise high upfront local investment.
A Zeekr representative in Thailand said that while local production could make the brand more competitive, the company is sticking with vehicle exports in the short term to maintain flexibility.
Stepping stone doubts
But for many of the Chinese automakers that flooded into Thailand, the strategy extended beyond simply capturing local market share.
The country, with its established automotive infrastructure and strategic location, was envisioned by many as a springboard – a potential manufacturing and export hub to penetrate the wider South-east Asian region and potentially hedge against trade barriers in Western markets. Great Wall Motor has already begun exporting Thai-made vehicles to neighboring countries like Vietnam and Indonesia.
The rationale seems compelling on the surface. Establishing production bases in South-east Asia could offer preferential access to member markets, provide a diversification strategy away from US or European Union tariffs on China-made goods, and offer a release valve for the intense overcapacity plaguing the Chinese domestic market.
However, the dream of Thailand as a seamless stepping stone into South-east Asia appears increasingly challenging, hindered by local supply-side issues, while bumping against regional complexities.
Most fundamental is cost competitiveness: manufacturing EVs in Thailand is around 20 per cent more expensive than in China, the head of a Chinese automaker's Thai factory told Caixin, eroding a key advantage.
'For Japanese automakers, producing in Thailand is much cheaper than producing in Japan, so they can naturally use Thailand as a production base,' said a source at SAIC MG.
But as one auto industry insider lamented: 'Frankly speaking, nowhere in the world is cheaper or more efficient than manufacturing in China.'
Moreover, regional giants like Indonesia, South-east Asia's largest auto market, are aggressively pursuing their own EV industrial policies, directly competing for investment from the very same Chinese companies.
Indonesia's local rules and tax incentives also favor domestic production, potentially fragmenting rather than consolidating regional manufacturing strategies. CAIXIN GLOBAL