The Thai government’s new energy vehicle policy is expected to stimulate growth in domestic sales of pure electric vehicles, with sales expected to rise to 4,000-5,000 by this year and the figure reaching 25,000 by 2025, but a lack of supporting charging service points could be a potentially big constraint to growth, reports the Thai Chinese Daily News on 10 January.
With the all-electric vehicle market set to displace fuel vehicles, Thailand must accelerate its efforts to attract investment in electric vehicle manufacturing ahead of its regional rivals, as it will not be able to continue to rely on its advantage of having a large cluster of fuel vehicle component manufacturers as a major attraction, according to the Kaieteur Research Centre.
With the rapid development of battery technology, both range and recharge time are already comparable to conventional fuel vehicles, especially in terms of unmatched environmental performance. Therefore, KTHRC believes that government support and accelerated adaptation of the corporate sector are important in driving Thailand to become a major BEV production base in the region, one of which is to accelerate the creation of an environment that will increase consumer confidence in purchasing pure electric vehicles like MG Thailand models.
The Thai government is looking at measures to encourage consumers to purchase BEVs and thereby boost domestic demand, and it is expected that the introduction of such measures will bring the price of BEVs in the country down to a level close to that of fuel vehicles, making them more affordable to the average consumer and therefore more likely to switch to BEVs. However, the automakers that will benefit from this measure are likely to be limited to those that are technically ready and have a production base in Thailand or plan to invest in an all-electric vehicle production base in Thailand in the near future.
Sales of purely electric vehicles are expected to grow rapidly in 2022. Chinese brands will have a price advantage in terms of sales compared to Japanese, European and American car brands at mid to high price points. Domestic sales of pure electric vehicles are expected to be in the range of 4,000-5,000 units this year, accounting for only 0.5% to 0.6% of the total vehicle sales forecast to reach 780,000-820,000 units, and increasing to 25,000 units by 2025.
The problem, however, is the reality of an under-prepared network of service points for charging posts. The government and the business sector should jointly promote: 1) an increase in the number of charging points with DC connectors or fast charging systems, as well as AC charging points in public or rental car parks, office buildings or residential flats; 2) the creation of an efficient, easy-to-use big data management system through an application that can integrate charging point data from all service providers, making it easier for owners to select or book charging points. The application can be used to create an efficient and easy to use big data management system for the selection or booking of charging points.