Can Chery produce electric vehicles in Thailand for Australia?

Thailand’s auto industry is continuing to grow, announcing this week it is investing in Chinese carmaker Chery to produce electric vehicles domestically – and Australia could be the partner for the relationship This.

Earlier this month, the Thai government’s Board of Investment (BOI) approved an undisclosed investment in Chery to build an electric vehicle factory in Rayong province – about 2.5 hours southeast of Bangkok. – in the coming years.

The Bangkok Post Office reports Chery will use the factory to produce electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) for its Omoda and Jaecoo sub-brands, with plans to export vehicles to countries in the ASEAN, Oceania and Middle East.

Chery, China’s third-largest carmaker, sold more than 1.8 million vehicles in domestic and overseas markets last year, of which 5,890 were sold in Australia.

The brand relaunched locally in mid-2023 with Omoda 5 And after that Tiggo 7 Prowhile getting bigger Tiggo 8 Pro Max Coming soon to showrooms.

Chery has also announced plans to bring Jaecoo came to Australia this yearThe original was a J7 SUV that was the size of the Toyota RAV4 and ran on gasoline.

According to Bangkok Post OfficeChery plans to produce the Omoda 5 EV (soon to be branded as the Omoda E5 here) and the Jaecoo J7 PHEV at the factory, aiming to produce 50,000 vehicles per year during the initial production phase before ramping up to 80,000 car in 2028.

While there was no specific mention of Australia, it’s possible that Chery’s future electric cars for our market could come from Thailand.

In 2023, Thailand is the second largest source of new car sales in Australia, with 264,253 Thai-made cars delivered, second only to auto powerhouse Japan, which contributed 345,071 to the total of 1,216. .780 new car sales.

However, the majority of vehicles produced in Thailand for Australia are utes and related body-on-frame SUVs, such as Ford Ranger/Everest Moutain, Toyota Hilux And Isuzu D-Max/MU-X.

Meanwhile, China overtook South Korea for the first time to take third place in Australia’s new car sales rankings, with 193,433 cars imported from the country, a sharp increase of 57.5 per cent. Compared with the last year.

Chery is not the first Chinese automaker to start operations in Thailand. BYD, GWM And Truong An all have opened stores there in recent years – yet all vehicles manufactured and sold by these brands in Australia come from China.

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