BANGKOK Reuters - China's Great Wall Motor Co Ltd is finalizing plans to invest up to $30 million to set up a new battery pack assembly plant in Thailand, where it will start making a compact electric car next year, according to a company official.
The company is also considering establishing a research and development centre in Thailand to work on battery-powered pickup trucks, said Narong Sritalayon, managing director of Great Wall Motor Thailand.
The automaker has 10 similar development hubs worldwide that focus on other technologies. In Thailand, which aims to become a regional electric vehicle production centre, the investment would be influenced by government subsidies, Narong said.
Although China's Great Wall and BYD Co Ltd have made large investments in Thailand, Japanese carmakers such as Toyota Motor Corp and Isuzu Motors Ltd dominate the country's domestic auto market, with pickup trucks accounting for more than half of sales last year.
I think there are a lot of things we can learn from Thailand's unique market for pickup trucks, he said.
Thailand, the world's tenth-largest auto manufacturing hub, aims to utilize tax cuts and subsidies to convert about 30 percent of the country's annual production of 2.5 million vehicles into EVs by 2030, according to a government plan.
In late 2021, Great Wall launched its Ora Good Cat compact EV in Thailand. Last year, it became the country's top-selling EV, with the cheapest version listed on Great Wall's website priced at 828,500 Thai baht $24,475 after a government subsidies of 230,500 baht.
In 2020, Great Wall entered Thailand after taking over a former General Motors Co plant that now makes two of its Haval hybrid vehicles for sale in the country.
It will begin production of the Ora Good Cat in Thailand next year, and will look to source more components locally, including battery packs, to meet requirements under the government's incentive scheme for carmakers.
The cost of a pack assembly facility would range between 500 million to 1 billion Thai baht, with the exact size depending on a plan to be finalised within the next six months, Narong said.
SVOLT Energy Technology, a Great Wall partner that has been expanding its presence in other markets like Europe, is planning to produce battery assembly packs in Thailand in the first phase of its expansion, the company said.
But the facility could be extended for battery cell production with additional investment depending on demand and the Thai government's support, Great Wall said.
We may also become a contract manufacturer of batteries to other automakers, he said. This would also scale up the capacity of the battery plant. China's CATL provides a 63.1-kilowatt hour battery pack for the Ora Good Cat 500 Ultra version imported into Thailand, but Great Wall said it has no current plans to purchase batteries from CATL for its upcoming local production.
Thailand is preparing to meet CATL - the world's leading battery supplier with a market share of 37% - and other battery makers to build production facilities in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy.