ASIATODAY.ID, BANGKOK – Toyota Motor is preparing to launch an aggressive decarbonization campaign in Thailand.
Toyota is partnering with leading local businesses in Thailand such as Charoen Pokphand Group to focus on demand for commercial electric and fuel cell vehicles.
“I believe our actions now can change the future,” said Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda while attending an endurance race last month in Buriram, 400 kilometers from Bangkok, reported by Nikkei Asia.
“I want people to experience the choice to be carbon neutral using their five senses.”
Toyoda was not the only Toyota executive to visit Thailand last December. President Koji Sato and Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima had arrived in Bangkok a few days earlier. Their trip coincided with the announcement that Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu, which produces mini kei cars, had conducted flawed safety tests.
But despite the crisis at home, executives remained in Thailand to advance decarbonization alliances with local partners.
Toyoda and his colleagues met with leaders of CP Group and Siam Cement Group, including CP Group Senior Chairman Dhanin Chearavanont. CP Group is a global player in the agribusiness sector with total revenues of tens of billions of US dollars, while Siam Cement is more than 30 percent owned by Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
The three companies agreed to partner in achieving carbon neutrality in Thailand, together with Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies (CJPT), which is supported by Toyota and compatriot Isuzu Motors, as well as a Thai leasing company. Details of their bond will be finalized later.
But the recent race in Buriram provides a hint of what they may be planning. Among Toyota’s competitors was a hydrogen-powered Corolla, driven by Toyoda himself. The vehicle is powered by an engine fueled partly by hydrogen made from chicken manure at CP Group’s poultry farms and processed by Toyota’s unit in Thailand.
The droppings from 29 million chickens can power 100,000 small trucks for a year, according to Toyota. Isuzu Motors has begun testing the use of hydrogen in fuel cell trucks.
A booth at the race venue highlighted decarbonization technologies, including an electric version of the Toyota Hilux pickup truck.
CP Group’s Makro hypermarket already uses these trucks for deliveries, and trials that ended last year showed that they helped reduce emissions.
Apart from accelerating trials with CP Group, Toyota will also consider using the Hilux EV for SCG logistics vehicles.
Toyota has close ties with Thailand, which explains why the Japanese automaker launched the initiative here. Toyoda has long said that Thailand is his second home.
When the company faced major recalls in the United States in 2010, shortly after Toyoda became president, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is the current monarch, voiced his confidence in the automaker.
Another reason is the carmaker’s track record in the country, controlling a share of more than 30 percent and turning it into a large production base that earned it the nickname, “Asia’s Detroit.”
In recent years, Thailand has rapidly moved in the field of car electrification with the aim of developing new industries. Sales of electric vehicles in December reached a record high of 9,258 units, according to automotive news website Autolife Thailand.
Full year sales jumped 7.8 times compared to the previous year. Electric vehicles account for more than 10 percent of new monthly car sales, and 80 percent of them are from Chinese automakers such as BYD.
Toyota has not yet entered full-scale production and sales of electric vehicles in Thailand.
“Japanese companies are not proactively investing in new fields,” Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said in mid-December, considering local electric vehicle production.
Toyota has a tremendous lead in hybrid vehicles, but its desire to enter the field of electric and fuel cell vehicles in earnest led to an alliance with Thai companies.
The Thai government is focusing on the electrification of pickup trucks. These vehicles are estimated to control around 40 percent of the domestic automotive market, making them the most popular type among the public.
Thailand is also a manufacturing center that exports pickup trucks mainly to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Currently, Chinese automakers are launching electric vehicles in the compact and subcompact segments.
Toyota and other Japanese rivals have built supply chains with overwhelming advantages in pickup trucks. Toyota has vowed to access more than half of Thailand’s distribution channels through partnerships with CP and SCG, given the logistics scale and sales networks of both groups.
If field tests prove that electric vehicle-powered logistics is feasible, this represents a major commercial opportunity for Toyota.
Now that Chinese players control most of Thailand’s electric vehicle market, “we really have to catch up,” said Masahiko Maeda, Toyota’s Asia CEO.
To bounce back, Toyota will press ahead with a two-pronged strategy that will involve developing passenger electric vehicles to compete with Chinese rivals and developing the market for all-electric pickups in the business sector. (Nikkei Asia)
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