首頁Storm
搜尋歷史
熱門搜尋
經銷商登入 / 註冊
On the last day of the Bangkok Auto Show, the temperature in front of the BYD booth was even higher than outside.
The air conditioner was set to maximum, the crowd was packed together, and the emitted heat made the cool air thin. There was a faint scent of sweat in the air.
A Thai boy of five or six years old lay in front of the car's central control screen at the exhibition, his fingers moving fast. The animation on the screen jumped around in response.
His mother stood behind him watching for a while, and in Thai said: “This looks like an iPad.” Several young couples nearby heard and laughed.
The Toyota exhibition area next door was a completely different scene. The exhibition fixtures were polished to a shine. Sales staff wore dark grey suits, neatly ironed, standing with hands folded on the side of the booth. After standing there all morning, he looked down and scrolled through Line.
When the monthly data came out, the entire industry was stunned.
Chinese brands sold 43,791 vehicles in Thailand, while Japanese cars sold 43,789 vehicles.
With a narrow advantage of just two vehicles, Japanese cars, which had dominated Thailand for over sixty years, were pushed off the monthly top spot by Chinese brands for the first time, even though this was a pulse market driven by rushed registrations before the EV3.0 subsidy expired.
That month, the pure electric market was a landslide. Chinese brands took more than three-quarters of the market share. BYD alone sold nearly 13,000 vehicles, ranking only behind Toyota among all brands.
In the car flow on the streets of Bangkok, new faces with familiar logos appeared more frequently.
A Chinese local running a travel agency took a photo at a traffic light intersection. On the left was a BYD Seal, and on the right was a Toyota Camry.
He posted it on WeChat Moments with four characters: Times are changing.
On the first day of February, Thailand's electric vehicle subsidy policy shifted gears.
Switching from EV3.0 to EV3.5, the subsidy per vehicle was cut from a maximum of 150,000 Baht to 100,000. Imported vehicles no longer enjoyed preferential consumption tax; the standard tax rate was restored, and subsidies no longer covered imported vehicles.
Chinese brands that previously relied on imported models to lead the charge saw terminal prices jump instantly. BYD saw some models rise by about one-third, while a key MG model was directly adjusted up by 100,000 Baht.
The market cooled faster than anyone predicted.
Data from the Federation of Thai Industries shows that February pure electric vehicle sales plummeted by over eighty percent month-on-month.
The market share of Chinese brands across all categories dropped sharply from 47.3% to 11.65%. BYD fell from over 12,000 units to less than 300. Not a single Chinese brand entered the top five that month.
In a BYD showroom in northern Bangkok, a Thai female salesperson named Kim experienced it all. She is in her early thirties, a local from Bangkok, and previously sold cars at Toyota for 5 years.
She jumped ship because she found that more and more young people coming to the Toyota store mentioned a Chinese brand she had never heard of.
In the week of the January Auto Show, she signed 17 orders, more than double her average monthly sales volume at Toyota. In February, she didn't sell a single car.
In her phone, she saved a photo taken on the last day of the January Auto Show. On the whiteboard in the corner of the booth, the day's order count was written in scrawl. Next to the number, someone drew a funny face.
Asked why she didn't quit. She didn't answer directly. After a while, she said: “There are more and more Chinese cars on the street, this will be the future of Bangkok streets.”
It rained outside the showroom. She stood at the door watching for a while. The rain wet a row of cars parked on the street opposite. There were Toyota and Honda, but also BYD and Great Wall.
From peak to ice point, the calendar turned a page. Chinese brands did not exit completely and soon came back with a vengeance.
In March, Chery sold 2,155 vehicles, ranking fifth. MG sold 1,625, ranking seventh. Great Wall sold 1,350, ranking ninth.
In April, during the Bangkok Auto Show, Chinese brands exploded again. Reservation volume reached 90,530 units, accounting for nearly seventy percent. BYD topped the list with 17,354 reservations, surpassing Toyota's 15,750. In the top ten, except for Toyota and Honda, all 7 seats were occupied by Chinese brands.
At that time, what Kim did not know was that the policy change she feared came again in May.
In May, the Thailand Electric Vehicle Association, in conjunction with 10 automotive industry associations, submitted a document with 8 emergency policy suggestions to the government. The association representatives exceeded 1,500 enterprises.
The wording in the document was restrained, but the meaning was clear: some car companies were importing complete vehicles from China using zero tax rates instead of local production, which had already hurt Thailand's local component manufacturers.
Almost at the same time, Japanese Ambassador to Thailand Masato Otake publicly stated: “Shifting to electric vehicles completely at this stage is a bit too early.”
Behind these proposals and statements was the vast interest network built by Japanese car companies in Thailand over 60 years.
The automotive industry is a pillar industry in Thailand, accounting for more than ten percent of GDP. Thailand is the largest in ASEAN and the 10th largest in the world for car production, with more than 2,200 enterprises setting up operations here.
Rayong is southeast of Bangkok, less than two hours by car.
Japanese car companies gathered factories and thousands of component enterprises there for over 40 years. In the 1980s, workshops echoed with Japanese, but now Chinese can be heard.
7 major Chinese car companies have established complete vehicle production bases in Thailand, with a combined planned total capacity exceeding 600,000 vehicles.
The BYD Rayong factory has a designed annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles. In the two years since production started, cumulative deliveries have exceeded 130,000 vehicles. Changan's Rayong factory total investment exceeds 10 billion Baht, with Phase 1 annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles.
On the surface, Chinese enterprises are targeting the Thai market, but the true strategy is grander.
Right-hand drive markets cover India, Japan, UK, Australia, and other countries and regions, accounting for about 35% of the global population. Right-hand drive vehicles require separate design for steering devices, instrument panels, pedal structures, braking systems, airbags, wiring harnesses, and many other components. Building a new right-hand drive supply chain from scratch is difficult to estimate in terms of cost and time.
Chinese enterprises chose a smarter path, directly utilizing the industrial ecosystem Japan accumulated in Thailand over decades.
BYD, Changan, Great Wall, and Dongfeng Xiaokang do not view Thailand just as the Thai market, but as the starting point for the right-hand drive global market.
Japanese media calls this change “Thai Right-Hand Drive Automotive Supply Chain, China Replaces Japan”.
According to a series of reports by Nihon Keizai Shimbun in 2025, the market share of Japanese brands in major ASEAN countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam are all declining. Indonesia fell below 81%, Thailand dropped to 68%, and Vietnam fell to 33%. At the same time, the market share of Chinese brands in New Energy Vehicles in the six ASEAN countries exceeded 60%. Thailand 78%, Indonesia as high as 91%.
The same report also mentioned another interesting trend: Japanese car companies are rapidly expanding the procurement of Chinese components. Chinese components have a 30% to 40% cost advantage, and the speed is much faster. Chinese enterprises can mass-produce 10 months after receiving an order, while Japanese companies take a year and a half or more.
The Vice President of Toyota Gosei, a resin component company, said: “There is no longer a gap in quality.”
In the evening in Rayong, outside the walls of Japanese factories, the lights of Chinese factories are turning on.
A Thai technician named Anucha worked at a Toyota factory for 20 years. He quit at the end of 2025 and reported to Great Wall in early 2026. He said: “They pay 3,000 Baht more.” 3,000 Baht is equivalent to about 600 Yuan.
Anucha is responsible for a process on the battery pack assembly line at the Great Wall Rayong factory. When passing in front of the Toyota factory, sometimes he stops to smoke a cigarette, looking at the other side of the wall.
From May to July, the market gradually returned to normal. Chinese brands overall market share stabilized around 17%, moving out of the valley bottom of 11.65% in February, but never again saw the near-50% pulse situation of January. Chinese brands still accounted for about 90% of the pure electric market, but fuel vehicles and pickup truck markets were still held by Japanese companies.
Kim knew little about Rayong; she only saw the flow of customers in the showroom slowly returning. In March, people started coming into the store.
One afternoon in May, she signed a new customer, a Thai middle-aged man in his 50s, who had driven Hondas for over 20 years.
Kim asked why he thought of switching to a Chinese car. The other party said: “I tried them all. For a similar price, Chinese cars offer much more configurations and are easier to drive.”
Before the lights turned on on both sides of the Rayong walls, the first Chinese light that Thais saw was actually a bowl.
Lampang Rooster Bowls originated from ceramic skills brought by Chinese immigrants, used in noodle shops for noodle soup, and at street stalls for soup noodles.
Because they are hand-painted, every bowl has a different rooster, seen as a cultural calling card of Lampang Province by locals.
Later, Thais discovered China also has Rooster Bowls, produced on assembly lines with industrial printing. The production capacity is dozens of times that of hand-painted bowls, and the price is less than one-quarter.
A large influx of Chinese Rooster Bowls made local workshops fall apart.
Thais were angry: “Thai Rooster Bowls are artworks, each with a soul. How can soulless Chinese goods compare.”
More destructive than Rooster Bowls are motorcycles.
In the late 1990s, Chinese motorcycles entered Southeast Asia en masse. For the same model, Japanese motorcycles sold for $2,100, while Chinese motorcycles sold for $1,200 to $1,300. The price advantage pushed Chinese motorcycles to 80% of Vietnam's market share.
But Japanese motorcycles could be ridden for 10 years, while Chinese motorcycles had problems in a year or two. “Made in China” was solidified in Southeast Asia as a synonym for low quality and cheap.
These lessons were remembered by later Chinese enterprises when entering Thailand.
In 2002, Haier came. The first batch of products were moved over directly, but they didn't push. Haier did one thing: rooted. Local R&D, local manufacturing, local marketing.
Targeting the pain point of Thailand's hot weather where turning on the air conditioner at midnight easily leads to catching a cold, they developed voice-controlled air conditioners. By 2025, Haier's market share in Thailand rose to 14.5%, maintaining first place.
Around the same time, OPPO, Huawei, and Xiaomi also entered. The Thai public's perception of Chinese mobile phones slowly changed from “cheap” to “technology”.
From cheap to advanced, this cognitive shift is most intense in the automotive field.
Research by Southeast Asian independent brand communication consulting firm Vero shows that 72% of Thai consumers have a good impression of Chinese cars, believing they are affordable, technologically advanced, and fashionable.
In the Rooster Bowl workshop in Lampang, an old craftsman sat in front of the potter's wheel, hands turning. The bowls he made, the rooster was still painted stroke by stroke. He said: “Now no one buys hand-painted bowls. The stamped bowls from China are too cheap.”
He occasionally heard people mention that young people graduating from Lampang schools are working at factories in Rayong, earning much higher wages than in town.
At dusk of a bowl, is the boom of a movie and the dawn of a car.
In a Bangkok cinema, before the screen lit up, the BYD logo lit up first.
In July this year, the Chinese movie Love Letter to Grandma premiered in Thailand. BYD took exclusive sponsorship. On the opening night, BYD Thailand General Manager took the stage to give a speech.
A few days later, BYD's cumulative deliveries in Thailand exceeded 130,000 vehicles. The 130,000th vehicle was handed to the actress who played Grandma in the film.
BYD people said quite truthfully: “Use a movie about family affection to build a bridge between the audiences of the two countries.”
The Thai electric vehicle market is expanding at an amazing speed.
In the first half of 2026, electric vehicle registrations exceeded 100,000, a year-on-year increase of over 90%, and the penetration rate of the new car market reached 30%. At the beginning of the year, industry institutions predicted that annual sales would exceed 150,000 vehicles.
In the past few decades, car advertisements on Thai screens were almost completely taken over by Japanese brands.
Toyota advertisements were played on TV in loops. In Thai dramas, the car driven by the protagonist was no surprise Toyota, Honda, or Mitsubishi. Now Chinese brands are starting to broadcast on movie screens.
Changan shot three Thai-style short films “Thai Swift” “Thai Understands” “Thai Comprehensive” around the Rayong factory, using Thai language and humor to tell the story of Chinese brands.
On the same land, Japanese media is telling the same story with another visual language.
At the end of 2024, Nihon Keizai Shimbun released a documentary called “The Disappearing Engine Sounds of Thailand”, filming how Chinese electric cars are taking the market from Japanese cars.
Japanese people have never let go of their pride, but they also have to bow their heads and endure.
In the latest registration data of July, 7 Chinese brands were on the top 10 list of new cars in Thailand, but Toyota's single-month sales of nearly 20,000 vehicles still led by a wide margin.
On the brand sales list for the first half of the year, Toyota accumulated over 100,000 units, up 11.3% year-on-year. BYD ranked third with over 25,000 units, lagging behind Honda's 40,000. Chery grew amazingly, breaking 20,000 units, up more than 10 times year-on-year. MG, Aion, and Great Wall also squeezed into the top 10.
From 2020 to 2026, the market share of Chinese brands in Thailand climbed from an almost negligible 3.4% to 47.34%. Japanese cars slid from a high of 86.7% to around 47.33%.
In a Toyota repair shop in a small town in central Thailand, owner Somchai voiced another side. He is over 50 years old and has repaired Japanese cars all his life.
“Toyota cars are easy to fix,” he said. “If the wires break, connect them and it goes. Chinese electric cars break and you have to wait for parts. Who can wait a month?”
Then he laughed: “I also bought my daughter a Chinese electric car. It's good-looking, smart, quality is not bad, she likes it very much.”
This is the real picture of the Thai market. The consumption preferences of middle-aged people and young people are diverging, and reason and emotion are going their separate ways.
In fact, Chinese cars are only showing half their advantage in Thailand. Fuel saving, quiet, and high configurations are these real benefits.
The other half of the advantage, intelligence, is basically useless in Thailand.
Google Maps doesn't work well, and many drivers still use mobile phone navigation. Assisted driving is stuck at L2 level. Highway pilot and urban pilot are difficult to land.
Many models going out to Thailand have canceled LiDAR, or kept hardware but locked high-level intelligent driving functions, because local compliant high-precision maps are missing.
Charging infrastructure is also a problem. As of January 2026, Thailand already had 4,643 public charging stations and 13,977 public charging interfaces, but finding a charging pile outside of Bangkok is still anxiety-inducing.
When Kim took customers for test drives, the most asked question was charging. She had to patiently explain where the pile was, how long to charge, and how far to run. Sometimes customers shook their heads and left halfway through.
At the same time, cost is not an advantage. The ten component industry alliance led by the Thailand Electric Vehicle Association EVAT pointed out that under equal conditions, electric vehicles manufactured locally in Thailand cost 30% to 40% more than complete vehicles imported directly from China. Also, policy is uncertain. The EV3.5 policy expires at the end of 2027.
After the market digestion from May to July, Chinese cars are still everywhere. Toyota and Honda fuel pickups still account for a large proportion of the car flow.
Geopolitics is another ceiling. US tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles rose from 25% to 100%, starting to focus on checking transshipment assembly of Chinese brands assembled in Thailand.
Kim does not care about these, only caring about whether there are more guests in the showroom. Fortunately, performance has been getting more stable these past few months. Kim plans to buy another house with a mortgage.
That Rooster Bowl is still there, but now in Bangkok malls, you have to run to many places to find a Rooster Bowl. However, huge ads for Chinese electric vehicles are everywhere in the malls. There are even Chinese car showrooms and enthusiastic sales staff running around.
Kim is still full of energy and full of expectation for the future. Anucha has worked for half a year at Great Wall Rayong factory and has already called on several people around him to buy Great Wall cars. Somchai's daughter has driven a Chinese electric car for over half a year. When Somchai charges the car, sometimes neighbors will talk to him about Chinese cars and Japanese cars, and he answers with a smile.
The buzz of “Love Letter to Grandma” passed in Bangkok, but Chinese cars are everywhere. The reversal in January was a sudden firework triggered by policy. The data from May to July is the new normal of the Sino-Japanese car rivalry marathon.
On the streets of Bangkok, the green light is on. Cars from different countries pour out at the same time. No one is waiting for anyone, and no one is yielding to anyone...
