Thailand greenlights EV incentives to drive auto industry growth
The Thai government, through the National Electric Vehicle Policy Committee (EV board), has given a green light to the EV3.5 promotion measure to bolster the country’s automotive industry.
Set to be effective from next year to 2027, once the EV3.0 measures expire at the end of this year, the EV3.5 entails several benefits, including:
1. EV cars costing 2 million baht or less with a 10-50 kilowatt hours (kWh) battery will be eligible for a subsidy of 50,000 baht in 2024, 35,000 baht in 2025, and 25,000 baht in 2026-2027.
Cars with batteries of 50kWh or more are eligible for a subsidy of 100,000 baht in 2024, 75,000 baht in 2025, and 50,000 baht in 2026-2027.
Excise tax will be reduced from 8% to 2% from 2024 to 2027, while import duties will be capped at 40% for cars imported between 2024 and 2025.
2. EV cars costing more than 2 million baht but no more than 7 million baht will see a reduction of excise tax to 2% from 2024 to 2027 but will see no subsidy.
3. Pick-up trucks priced below 2 million baht but with a battery of 50kWh or more will be eligible for a subsidy of 100,000 baht in the 2024-2027 period. The subsidy is only applicable to EV pickups manufactured in Thailand. Excise tax, meanwhile, will be exempted in 2024-2025 before rising to 2% in 2026-2027.
4. Motorcycles costing less than 150,000 baht with batteries of 3kWh and above will be eligible for a subsidy of 10,000 baht in the 2024-2027 period. This applies to only bikes manufactured in Thailand. The excise tax will also be reduced to 1% during the aforementioned period.
In 2022, Thailand produced approximately 1.9 million vehicles, making it the largest automotive production base in ASEAN and ranked 10th globally.
In the first 10 months of this year, Thailand produced 538,308 passenger cars, including 415,930 internal combustion vehicles and 122,378 EVs. Its automotive exports were 927,625, including 918,157 internal combustion vehicles and 9,468 hybrid EVs.
As many as 2,222 charging stations with 8,702 chargers have been set up across Thailand so far. These are being operated by government and private agencies, such as the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and Energy Absolute.
