Japan's Mazda is confident its application for electric vehicles (EVs) manufacturing will be considered soon even though the Board of Investment (BoI) has frozen all EV applications from carmakers for almost a year.
Mazda announced it would invest 11.4 billion baht to equip its Rayong plant to produce hybrid EVs (HEVs), submitting an application with the BoI to take advantage of its HEV production privilege scheme, which expired Dec 29, 2017.
Other Japanese peers applying for the HEV scheme comprise Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda and Suzuki, but only Toyota was granted the BoI incentives last July.
Chanchai Trakarnudomsuk, president of Mazda Sales Thailand, a local unit of the Hiroshima-based firm, said Mazda is preparing more information the BoI has requested, which explains the delay.
"We have been talking with the BoI and we understand this segment is a priority for the board, though some megaprojects have been approved prior to the EV projects," he said.
"Readiness is essential for Mazda and its suppliers, in particular for vital EV parts such as batteries and motors that we cannot produce."
Mr Chanchai said Mazda designed a clear EV plan for Thailand, starting with HEVs, then potentially moving to develop plug-in hybrid EVs.
Once all related infrastructures are ready, the country can move to battery EVs.
"Mazda has a strategic plan to build the EV segment in Thailand, but we need to develop from HEVs first here, unlike in Europe where many of the markets encourage full EVs," he said.
Separately, Mazda announced Monday record sales during the first six months of 2018, selling 33,593 units for growth of 41%.
Mazda's market share in the same period rose by one percentage point at the end of 2017 to 6.9% as of the first half in 2018.
Mazda2 eco-car remains highly popular in the market with sales of 21,741 units, growing by 52%. Mazda is ranked at the second place in the eco-car segment, after Toyota, which has two eco-cars, Yaris and Yaris Ativ.
The CX-5 sport utility vehicle (SUV) had 4,399 units sold from January to June with a 179% growth and the BT-50 Pro pickup sold 3,254 units with a 5% growth.
However, the Mazda3 passenger car remained in the red with 2,621 units sold, down by 2% in the first half and the CX-3 sold 1,562 units, a 30% decrease.
Mr Chanchai said the overall car market in the first half rose by 19% to around 490,000 units in the country, driven by a healthy economy, a clearer political road map and the much-touted Eastern Economic Corridor scheme.
"GDP rose 4.5% and the overall confidence index is recovering; the two positive factors have mobilised the car market, which is growing higher than Mazda's expectations," he said.
Due to the healthy sales volume, Mazda revises up its 2018 market projection from 920,000 earlier to exceed 1 million vehicles and increase its sales target from 60,000 to 65,000 cars sold in Thailand.
Mazda is confident all existing products will drive its sales volume to the 2018 target.
The new CX-3 is scheduled to be launched on July 20.
