Toyota will soon test a new electric pickup truck in Thailand, its executive said, as the Japanese company strives to boost EV sales in a country where rising competition from Chinese rivals challenges its dominance.
Pras Ganesh, executive vice-president of Toyota Daihatsu Engineering & Manufacturing, said that its engineers were working on adapting its electric pickups to local conditions and building up EV R&D capacity in Thailand, one of Toyota’s five global R&D centres.
The world’s top-selling carmaker unveiled the electric version of its popular HiLux pickup truck last year but has not yet said when commercial sales would begin.
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Pickup trucks are critical to Thailand’s auto market, accounting for nearly half of all vehicle sales last year, and Toyota, according to research firm MarkLines, had a 39 per cent market share in the one-ton pickup truck segment in the first nine months of this year.
Across all Thai automotive segments, Toyota is the market leader with 34 per cent of new vehicle sales.
Ganesh said a small batch of battery EV pickups will be trialled in the beach city of Pattaya early next year and tested for use as ‘songthaews’, pickups that are commonly modified for use as taxis in many Southeast Asian countries.
“We will first start looking at public transit,” he told Reuters, adding Toyota is also considering testing other EV pickups for deployments including last-mile delivery services.
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EVs accounted for about half of all EV sales in Southeast Asia in the second quarter and are gaining traction in Thailand, where they are likely to account for less than 9 per cent of total vehicle sales this year, according to researcher BMI.
Toyota, along with its group companies, has invested nearly US$7 billion in Thailand over the last decade, and the carmaker told Reuters in July that it is considering producing EVs there.
For the current financial year ending March 2024, however, Toyota lowered on Wednesday its forecast for global battery-powered EV sales by 39 per cent partly due to its limited line-up.