The Cabinet agreed in August to waive import tariffs on battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and grant BOI incentives to investors that set up assembly plants for BEVs and produce critical parts such as batteries and motors within five years after receiving the privileges.
Suparat Sirisuwannagkura, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Thailand, said the government should include hybrid vehicles in its promotion policy so such cars were not more than 5 per cent more expensive than pure internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles.
He said hybrid technologies shared some core technologies such as batteries and motors that producers could develop further for plug-in hybrid vehicles, BEVs and fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) in the future. Moreover, electric vehicles still have many limitations, especially in battery technology, and automakers may eventually bypass them and leapfrog to FCVs.
"The policy should be technology-neutral, not pre-picking the winners, and let efficient technologies be born.
"On EVs, we view that rolling out 100 charging stations in three years might be too fast," said the researcher, citing the Energy Ministry's plan.
Piengjai Kaewsuwan, vice president of Nissan Motor (Thailand), said the company was interested in joining in the BOI's programme but the EV market would take time to grow. "Therefore, during the initial stage, the government should stimulate demand through cutting taxes to create the market first to send a signal to producers that they could begin production in the future," she said.