JBChiangRai

By approximate calculation, 48% of those sales are EV's* I think Legacy auto makers must be $hitting their pants. *Assuming MG's sales are EV's, maybe 45% if only half were EV's.

Which hotel are you staying in?

He has a Haval H6 PHEV, quoted range 202km if I remember right.

I am surprised to see the same people arguing their respective points in the forlorn hope of persuading their opponents that they are right. Aren't your wives and families missing you?

We usually stay in more expensive hotels, but on my first trip I clocked this hotel and out of curiosity looked it up. We will stay there for one night on 18th December before moving to a much better beach hotel in Hoi An for a few nights. I am trying the Flower out for a few friends who are thinking of escaping there for the smokey season, the whole of March for 13,000 baht approx. Actually, we are paying about 660 for the night because we have booked a 2 bedroom plus living room suite.

It's all relative, compared with Iceland, it's near. Nearer than Chiang Mai probably.

Sorry wrong quote

Da Nang, Vietnam. 4* hotel with pool near the beach, 331 baht per night. Flower Boutique Hotel, Da Nang.

My cat kills gheko's and I assist with the Tookae's.

I read that BYD has a bigger profit margin than Tesla because their manufacturing cost is cheaper than Tesla, even in China. BYD even make their own vegan leather and semiconductors and are leading the world on battery technology. I suspect that Chinese EV manufacturers could slash their prices by 15% and still make a handsome profit. The problem is going to be companies outside China trying to make EV's at anything close to the price Chinese EV's are made. We are seeing it here with Toyota's bZ4X. It costs 50% more than competitive Chinese vehicles. I think Toyota's manufacturing cost is higher than Chinese equivalents sales price. Thailand is a special case. They are taking a different, more enlightened approach to protecting their own auto market. They are giving open access to their market with incentives, but in return you have to open a manufacturing plant here and commit to a volume production of double what you sold by importing them. So the country gets billions of dollars of investment in manufacturing plants, not just for the domestic market but for export all across SE Asia. Thailand is reaching a tipping point, 42% of cars ordered at the motor show were EV's, 15% of recent new car registrations were EV's. It's already happening, Thailand is going EV at an unprecedented rate. What @stratocaster says about Thailand having the same problem as the UK in a few years is probably correct. Today we have abundant EV charging points on the highways, that is going to have to grow exponentially. I do think it's possible for Thailand to do that, whether or not it happens, I wouldn't like to wager. The other issue is charging stations at condo/apartment blocks. I think we will see some legislation on that, possibly with some grants.

Two points in there are wrong, and they are both related to the manufacture of Hydrogen. Hydrogen cars are more efficient, lighter and faster. Hydrogen makes better electric cars. Currently, the only mainstream Hydrogen car is the Mirai I featured and the back seats are unusable except by children, it's slow and definitely better than any EV. The big problem with Hydrogen is the efficiency. By the time it's in your car it's roughly 25% as efficient as a BEV (battery EV). The reason for this is Hydrogen has to be made by using electricity..... electrolyse water, it has to be compressed, put in tankers, taken to garages, stored underground, put in cars and turned back into electricity or energy by exploding it in a reciprocating engine (in this latter case efficiency halves to 12.5%). Hydrogen cars are not lighter and faster, they can be lighter or they can be faster. Fuel Cells are expensive, they are likely to be lighter not faster. Fuel Cells do not adapt well to ramping up or down production of electricity. Think of a very slow turbocharger taking an age to spin up. To get round this, they have to have Lithium batteries. I predict that we will see both BEV's and Hydrogen cars. Hydrogen cars will cost 4 times the cost per kilometer in fuel over BEV's, but they "may" have a longer range and can be fueled quicker. Because they are more expensive to run, most people will prefer BEV's, so a price differential will happen. BEV's will be more expensive to buy and Hydrogen cars will be seen as the cheaper, less desirable product. This is likely to happen because of shortage of Lithium mining and processing plants. Supply and Demand will push up the price of relatively scarce EV's (assuming demand is 10-50 times what it is now) and the more abundant availability of Hydrogen cars will fill the gap. Hydrogen is never going to be better, if better means people will choose it over BEV's.

Yes, the water gets visibly cleaner, but I suspect it would analyse badly with traces of raw sewage.

We have homes in Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai is definitely a lot more expensive than Chiang Rai, about 25% more for Grab and Foodpanda. We have lived in Pattaya (Prathumnak Soi 4) and Bangkok (Sukumvit Soi 16). Pattaya is navigable on a motorbike but you get ripped off by corrupt police and completely unnavigable by car at times, the sea is unusable it's so dirty. Bangkok pollution is appalling all year round and you better not try to go anywhere by taxi if it's raining. In Chiang Rai we call 2 cars in front of you at the traffic lights a traffic jam.

I agree, we have 2 MG EV's and they are both excellent.

A problem with the Turbo should have been very noticeable driving. Warning lights are usually faulty sensors, or a rat cutting the wire to a sensor.....

Thais don't like MG, they still remember their launch in Thailand with poorly made, unreliable cars with appalling after sales service. It's a shame because their EV's are excellent.

Almost 42% of cars booked at the motorshow are EV's.

I haven't seen the WLTP figures for the Neta, the only ones I can find are NEDC, I agree, I see the Neta as a town car with the occasional long-distance haul, though I could live with 30-80% in 30 minutes. I think every condo owner needs to put pressure on their management committees to install EV charging points. Some are already installing them but it's too slow. Perhaps the government will give some grants or legislate.

The Neta range is quoted as 380km, I regularly see them on the road making the journey between Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai. They certainly are speedy, when you compare power outputs of ICE vs EV you have to remember that the EV has that power throughout the range whereas the for the ICE it's quoted as a peak, you probably need to knock a third of the ICE number to compare accurately. I think the converse is true. Most people don't drive more than 80km a day, even those doing 300km don't ever need to waste any time filling up, they just plug in overnight at home. I reckon I save around 5 hours per year by not filling up with petrol/diesel.

I think you need to drive a Neta, they drive superbly and are currently 10% cheaper than the Ativ. I know which I would rather drive and if both available to hire, I would go for the Neta every time. We will probably see more competitors in the 550k to 750k range, at 771k the MG EP+ is already a stunning car, and it's in the Altis/Civic space. MG has a good reputation in the UK & EU, it's a shame they completely ruined their entry into the Thai market with badly manufactured, unreliable cars and appalling after sales service. Consumers take a long time to trust a company with a prior bad reputation.

There is definitely a huge appetite for EV's here. China is making it difficult for anyone to buy a non-Chinese EV by undercutting everyone else by 20-40%. It's inevitable they will achieve market dominance. Traditionally, those large Japanese organisations who have dominated the Thai auto market for decades are going to really struggle. 2023 could be a tipping point for them into unprofitability, for sure 2024 will be. I think we will see consolidation in that market, provinces they have had lots of Toyota dealerships will close a lot of them. What is going to be interesting is what happens in the secondhand market. There is most definitely lower demand for new ICE vehicles already, that is likely to filter into the secondhand market and we could see values of secondhand ICE vehicles plummet, especially those ICE cars targeted by competitive Chinese EV's. People who buy EV's generally love them and become huge fans, they tell their friends and people who hadn't considered one change their position and buy one, it's like a domino effect. The Japanese have been very slow to market with EV's here and haven't had the models available to be able to commit to the production figures of future vehicles made here to get the incentive from the government, a triple whammy, not only the subsidy, but secondly, limited or zero model choice and thirdly, paying a 20% tax import premium on an already uncompetitive manufacturing cost makes the cars wildly uncompetitive. The future is definitely EV and it appears to me it's Chinese EV here in Thailand. As for Tesla, demand here in Thailand has completely evaporated. The orders at the motor show prove that, zero to date, even with the refreshed Model 3. Outsold 10 to 1 by BYD in October. They have lost the plot and the country. A 20-25% price cut would make all the difference, but Tesla doesn't have the margins of BYD to play with.

You will be asked every 2 years I think

interestingly, there are no Chinese vehicles in the survey, my experience with Chinese EV’s is they are incredibly reliable, not a fault on the two we have.

You don't pay the debt, let the loan company take the car but offer to buy the car from the loan company, with that document you can get a new blue book

This is the best course of action.