Shocking slump: Thailand’s premium EV sales plunge 35%

[kwak250]

My Nephew bought a Honda wave and had it took off him after about 6 months and then a few days later came back with another new bike, That also was repossessed ,
Problem is everyone seems to be doing the same thing and the economy surely can't keep going on like this especially with cars .
 

[motdaeng]

36 minutes ago, bkk6060 said:

They are lousy cars.  A fad, hey look at me.  Most people who have them wish they did not. Big waste.

 

most people (from about 40+ million ev owners ww)... really? it would be great if you can provide some evidence for your clam! 

 

(you are probably right, most people you meet at your bar will confirm your ridiculous statement)

[JBChiangRai]

2 hours ago, WHansen said:

The way you're fighting the EV corner seems like you've bought one of the pieces of c*** and are trying to justify the mistake to yourself 😂

 

1 hour ago, Bandersnatch said:

I bought a second one and then an electric motor bike.

 

Damn, I keep forgetting I don’t like them.

Damn, I must be forgetting too, I’ve bought 1 Mercedes PHEV, then a Porsche EV, then 2 MG EV’s and now a BYD EV.  
 

I did give a couple of those away to my daughters.

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Damn, I must be forgetting too, I’ve bought 1 Mercedes PHEV, then a Porsche EV, then 2 MG EV’s and now a BYD EV.  
 

I did give a couple of those away to my daughters.

Oh, look at me. I'm rich enough to afford 5 EV's in a row.

 

Shallow as a mud puddle.

[hotchilli]

20 hours ago, webfact said:

“We believe Mini cars will appeal to Thai customers as their pricing aligns with the economic situation.”

Depends on who's pocket you're talking about.

[hotchilli]

18 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

You are missing the important number which is 40%

The percentage increase over what?

 

[JBChiangRai]

11 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

They are lousy cars.  A fad, hey look at me.  Most people who have them wish they did not. Big waste.

 

A well thought out and reasoned post.  "Most people who have them wish they did not" can I have some of whatever it is you're smoking?

 

8 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Oh, look at me. I'm rich enough to afford 5 EV's in a row.

 

Shallow as a mud puddle.

 

It's very sad.  Some of us were born poor but through initiative, risking everything they had and more than a little hard work became comfortably off. 

 

Whilst others don't take risks in their lives and work the 9 to 5, rising to the top if they have good qualities or retiring poor if they were generally unpopular people with personality defects who think those who made it in life are as "shallow as a mud puddle".

 

26 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

The percentage increase over what?

 

 

It is not about the numbers, it is about the trend.  In their first year Tesla sold 100 cars, they were all pre-ordered many for longer than a year.

 

In their second year they sold 900 cars.

 

If you look at the numbers as @vinny41 would have us do, you would say pfft, it's nothing, insignificant compared to the millions of ICE cars sold.

 

However, if you look at the trend, it points to what is important, people were switching their allegiance from ICE to EV.

 

It's the same with BMW, their EV sales increase in the article is 40%. That is the trend.

 

If we look at all EV sales in Thailand, a similar pattern emerges.  You have to look at EV sales compared to ICE cars.  You can't look at EV sales alone.  So the best metric for buyer behaviour is to look at all the new cars sold and in particular look at the percentage of EV's out of the whole and the percentage of ICE as a whole.

 

January is unusual and had to be discounted for obvious reasons (subsidy ending and big push to register 2023 cars).

 

So we have February, March, April, May & June.  In each of those months the market share of EV's increased over the previous month and correspondingly, the market share of ICE cars decreased each month.

 

The trend is clear, of all those people choosing to buy a new car, a greater percentage of them every month chose an EV over an ICE.

 

Why are people choosing EV's over ICE?  The advantages are clear, they cost 20% of an ICE car to refuel.  You can wake up every morning to a full tank. They drive better, they are as quiet as a Rolls Royce, there is no vibration from the engine.  They are fast, there is a direct relationship between acceleration & pleasure.  In Thailand, they cost about the same.

 

Why are people choosing ICE over EV? It's either FUD (fear uncertainty & doubt) over things like Will the battery fail? Will it catch fire? Will it depreciate really badly? Can I make long trips? Or it could be that their usage pattern makes it more difficult to own an EV, they may live in a condo, most of their trips are long distance.  The other reason is VFM, Value for Money (but not in Thailand).

 

America and EU apply tariffs on Chinese EV's, so the great VFM advantage disappears. FUD & the battery issue is being addressed by manufacturers, MG just gave a lifetime warranty on their batteries, others may follow suit. Catching fire is about education, it's a fact proven with statistics from several countries that EV's catch fire a lot less than ICE cars, more than 10 times less.  Depreciation in some countries is an issue, in Thailand and Norway it isn't.  I recently sold an MG EP+ and I had to fight off potential buyers, it sold to the first caller.  I am looking for a second-hand ORA Good Cat for one of my daughters, they are too expensive for me, I will probably buy new.

 

I have a 76 year old lady friend.  A couple of months back she bought a new MG4 X-Power, she can't charge at home as she lives off grid.  She goes to PTT and fast charges her car whilst she has a coffee in Amazon, it suits her lifestyle but it doesn't suit everybody.  She doesn't think twice about driving to Chiang Mai for a weekend.

 

As more and more people switch to EV's their friends and neighbours see they have them and hear good reports and they make the switch too.  Look at California and Norway.  Thailand is leading the way in Asia for a very simple reason.  You can buy a high-quality Chinese EV at the same price or less than an ICE equivalent because there are no tariffs.

 

There are a lot of us on this forum who drive EV's, we are not all stupid.

 

 

 

[Lacessit]

14 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

 

 

It's very sad.  Some of us were born poor but through initiative, risking everything they had and more than a little hard work became comfortably off. 

 

Whilst others don't take risks in their lives and work the 9 to 5, rising to the top if they have good qualities or retiring poor if they were generally unpopular people with personality defects who think those who made it in life are as "shallow as a mud puddle".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used to belong to a very prestigious golf club in Australia. It was a mix of old money, good golfers who wanted great courses to play on, and what I would call nouveau riche.

 

The old money were level-headed about their place in life, interesting to talk to. Some of the sharpest minds around.

 

Most of the nouveau riche treated the club staff like dirt, and looked down on anyone who was not at their financial level. Their sole topic of conversation was their latest possessions. I avoided them as I would avoid leprosy. They were usually lousy golfers as well.

 

I am not rich. However, I will die solvent. I don't need flash possessions to impress friends, relatives, and neighbors. I buy most things secondhand because I was taught to value the money I earned, and not waste it.

 

You made it from humble beginnings, good for you. So did I, to a lesser extent.

 

If you want to impress me with what you achieved in life, go ahead. I have some achievements I am proud of too.

 

Just don't try to impress me with what you own, because IMO that's pathetic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

1 minute ago, Lacessit said:

I used to belong to a very prestigious golf club in Australia. It was a mix of old money, good golfers who wanted great courses to play on, and what I would call nouveau riche.

 

The old money were level-headed about their place in life, interesting to talk to. Some of the sharpest minds around.

 

Most of the nouveau riche treated the club staff like dirt, and looked down on anyone who was not at their financial level. Their sole topic of conversation was their latest possessions. I avoided them as I would avoid leprosy. They were usually lousy golfers as well.

 

I am not rich. However, I will die solvent. I don't need flash possessions to impress friends, relatives, and neighbors. I buy most things secondhand because I was taught to value the money I earned, and not waste it.

 

You made it from humble beginnings, good for you. So did I, to a lesser extent.

 

If you want to impress me with what you achieved in life, go ahead. I have some achievements I am proud of too.

 

Just don't try to impress me with what you own, because IMO that's pathetic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are very judgmental.

 

I have never tried to impress you nor would I try to impress you with anything. You lost my respect when on another thread you said you would never live in a condo unless it had allocated parking, when in fact you do live in one without allocated parking. Integrity is important to me.

 

The post I was replying to was "The way you're fighting the EV corner seems like you've bought one of the pieces of c*** and are trying to justify the mistake to yourself 😂"

 

I bought 5, that is hardly the behaviour of someone who thinks buying any of them was a mistake.  I know of at least 2 other members here who have bought 2 or more EV's.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lacessit]

24 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

You are very judgmental.

 

I have never tried to impress you nor would I try to impress you with anything. You lost my respect when on another thread you said you would never live in a condo unless it had allocated parking, when in fact you do live in one without allocated parking. Integrity is important to me.

 

The post I was replying to was "The way you're fighting the EV corner seems like you've bought one of the pieces of c*** and are trying to justify the mistake to yourself 😂"

 

I bought 5, that is hardly the behaviour of someone who thinks buying any of them was a mistake.  I know of at least 2 other members here who have bought 2 or more EV's.

 

 

 

 

 

Quite simply, you are wrong. The condo where I live has allocated parking. There is a sticker on the windshield of my car that says so, and I have never had to park my car anywhere else in the four years I have lived there.

 

If you mean the condo does not have numbered parking spaces for each unit, then you are right. It depends on the definition of allocated. Perhaps you can show me a condo in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai where the parking spaces are numbered or named, because I have yet to see one.

 

You said you had a Merc, a Porsche, 2 MG's and a BYD. If that's not boasting, I don't know what is.

 

As far as loss of respect goes, I guess we are even.

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

6 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Quite simply, you are wrong. The condo where I live has allocated parking. There is a sticker on the windshield of my car that says so, and I have never had to park my car anywhere else in the four years I have lived there.

 

If you mean the condo does not have numbered parking spaces for each unit, then you are right. It depends on the definition of allocated. Perhaps you can show me a condo in Chiang Rai where the parking spaces are numbered or named, because I have yet to see one.

 

You said you had a Merc, a Porsche, 2 MG's and a BYD. If that's not boasting, I don't know what is.

 

As far as loss of respect goes, I guess we are even.

 

 

 

 

Your condo does not have allocated parking, you have an access sticker to the car park.  Your condo has spaces for 25% of the rooms there, which is what the previous thread was about. 

 

I used to live in a condo in Pattaya, we did have allocated parking.  We had one space per room, allocated.

 

You need to remember that sitting behind your keyboard you still risk being caught out in a lie.  The internet is not as anonymous as you may think.

[Lacessit]

2 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Your condo does not have allocated parking, you have an access sticker to the car park.  Your condo has spaces for 25% of the rooms there, which is what the previous thread was about. 

 

I used to live in a condo in Pattaya, we did have allocated parking.  We had one space per room, allocated.

 

You need to remember that sitting behind your keyboard you still risk being caught out in a lie.  The internet is not as anonymous as you may think.

Is that a threat? Stick it where the sun does not shine.

 

You have your point of view, I have mine. As far as I am concerned, I was allocated an access sticker with my purchase of the condo, and your posting on the topic is bordering on OCD.

[bkk6060]

13 hours ago, motdaeng said:

 

most people (from about 40+ million ev owners ww)... really? it would be great if you can provide some evidence for your clam! 

 

(you are probably right, most people you meet at your bar will confirm your ridiculous statement)

Who is ridiculous? Drank the Cool aid?  People hate them.

The report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that a staggering 46% of Americans who purchased an electric vehicle regret the decision and plan on making their next purchase an internal combustion engine.Jun 27, 2024

[JBChiangRai]

11 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Is that a threat? Stick it where the sun does not shine.

 

You have your point of view, I have mine. As far as I am concerned, I was allocated an access sticker with my purchase of the condo, and your posting on the topic is bordering on OCD.

 

Of course it's not a threat, it's a recommendation that you try to post honestly with integrity.

 

 

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

Of course it's not a threat, it's a recommendation that you try to post honestly with integrity.

 

 

I think I do , you don't. I think you are a shallow poseur, you don't.

[BKKBike09]

21 hours ago, impulse said:

I feel for the buyers who got caught in the hype, not realizing they were buying an 80386 when the Intel I7s were just a few years away.  Or paid $5,000 for a 50" flat screen TV.  Which may have seemed like a bargain at the time.

 

As it happens I bought a 43" Pioneer plasma flat screen 18 years ago for USD 4,000. Still works great. 

 

18 hours ago, vinny41 said:

Byd atto3 owner recently posted on the facebook groups that his car value has dropped B650,000 iin 2 years  excluding interest charges after BYD recent price reductions

 

That would be a painful hit. I think the best strategy is to keep the car for at least eight years (ie the period of free servicing etc) and then sell for whatever you can get for it. The depreciation curve will have flattened out a lot by then. I'm hoping that - like my TV - my Atto 3 will still work fine many years down the road. 

 

 

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

[Bandersnatch]

41 minutes ago, bkk6060 said:

Who is ridiculous? Drank the Cool aid?  People hate them.

The report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that a staggering 46% of Americans who purchased an electric vehicle regret the decision and plan on making their next purchase an internal combustion engine.Jun 27, 2024

 

American are unhappy with their EVs, that’s understandable they can’t buy Chinese EVs 

[BKKBike09]

14 hours ago, transam said:

It is obvious to many that the few here took the gamble, which it was, but do not like being questioned on it.

I have read a lot on the downside of an EV ownership, most of the criticisms would p_ss most folk off, but we have probably all read the same stuff.

 

I 'took the gamble' and don't mind being questioned on it.

 

18 months later I'm as happy with my EV as with any other previous ICE I've bought for commuting / general urban daily use. Comfortable, quiet, reliable (so far) and uninspiring. Just like the various Honda's I've had before it.

 

Ev's are ideal for some, far from ideal for others.

 

[JBChiangRai]

28 minutes ago, BKKBike09 said:

 

I 'took the gamble' and don't mind being questioned on it.

 

18 months later I'm as happy with my EV as with any other previous ICE I've bought for commuting / general urban daily use. Comfortable, quiet, reliable (so far) and uninspiring. Just like the various Honda's I've had before it.

 

Ev's are ideal for some, far from ideal for others.

 

 

Me too, I took the gamble, though I played safe & bought a PHEV first and then thought why do I need this heavy ICE & Gearbox? so bought EV's after that.

[JBChiangRai]

44 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

 

It has stickers on the side, that reminds of someone else with stickers over his jalopy, who could that be I wonder?

[spidermike007]

17 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

You reminder of those people looking at a climbing or declining graph and tell me that it is about to plateau and reverse.

 

Are you psychic or just a conspiracist?

No. I believe in common sense. When the economy gets over heated to the degree it has been, it corrects. Also, I believe in cycles. We have had a serious correction once entry 15 years or so, for the past century. 

 

Are you a believer in denial? 

[JBChiangRai]

11 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

No. I believe in common sense. When the economy gets over heated to the degree it has been, it corrects. Also, I believe in cycles. We have had a serious correction once entry 15 years or so, for the past century. 

 

Are you a believer in denial? 

 

Actually, I agree with you, but it won't be specific to EV's, it will be to the auto industry as a whole.

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

2 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

You are very judgmental.

 

I have never tried to impress you nor would I try to impress you with anything. You lost my respect when on another thread you said you would never live in a condo unless it had allocated parking, when in fact you do live in one without allocated parking. Integrity is important to me.

 

The post I was replying to was "The way you're fighting the EV corner seems like you've bought one of the pieces of c*** and are trying to justify the mistake to yourself 😂"

 

I bought 5, that is hardly the behaviour of someone who thinks buying any of them was a mistake.  I know of at least 2 other members here who have bought 2 or more EV's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Quite simply, you are wrong. The condo where I live has allocated parking. There is a sticker on the windshield of my car that says so, and I have never had to park my car anywhere else in the four years I have lived there.

 

If you mean the condo does not have numbered parking spaces for each unit, then you are right. It depends on the definition of allocated. Perhaps you can show me a condo in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai where the parking spaces are numbered or named, because I have yet to see one.

 

You said you had a Merc, a Porsche, 2 MG's and a BYD. If that's not boasting, I don't know what is.

 

As far as loss of respect goes, I guess we are even.

 

 

 

 

So your condo has 1 space for every 4 rooms, and this is what you said on the other thread in  March last year

 

No way I would be buying into or renting a condo which did not allocate parking of one slot per apartment.

 

Where is your integrity now?

[impulse]

One enviable phenomenon I've been seeing up in Tianjin where the temps are running around 38C is the EV drivers parked in their cars with just the AC and tunes running.

 

ICE cars depend on high RPMs for the AC to work properly.  It appears that EV air conditioners work well even standing still. 

 

Edit: that brings up another potential for EVs, to charge them up when electric rates are low, and feed power back during peak hours when the rates spike.  Or like in Texas where electricity was knocked out for a week. On one hand, they couldn't charge the EVs, but they really needed to keep their fridges running more than they needed to drive around on flooded roads.

[JBChiangRai]

1 minute ago, impulse said:

One enviable phenomenon I've been seeing up in Tianjin where the temps are running around 38C is the EV drivers parked in their cars with just the AC and tunes running.

 

ICE cars depend on high RPMs for the AC to work properly.  It appears that EV air conditioners work well even standing still. 

Brakes, power steering, air con compressors all driven from electric on an EV

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

 

So your condo has 1 space for every 4 rooms, and this is what you said on the other thread in  March last year

 

No way I would be buying into or renting a condo which did not allocate parking of one slot per apartment.

 

Where is your integrity now?

You are quibbling over semantics of what allocation means. It's obsessive on your part, and boring. I have a parking space at the condo, get that through your thick skull.

 

Your talk of honesty and integrity rings rather hollow when you refuse to admit there are any downsides to the electric Jesus you espouse.

 

 

[vinny41]

4 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

A well thought out and reasoned post.  "Most people who have them wish they did not" can I have some of whatever it is you're smoking?

 

 

It's very sad.  Some of us were born poor but through initiative, risking everything they had and more than a little hard work became comfortably off. 

 

Whilst others don't take risks in their lives and work the 9 to 5, rising to the top if they have good qualities or retiring poor if they were generally unpopular people with personality defects who think those who made it in life are as "shallow as a mud puddle".

 

 

It is not about the numbers, it is about the trend.  In their first year Tesla sold 100 cars, they were all pre-ordered many for longer than a year.

 

In their second year they sold 900 cars.

 

If you look at the numbers as @vinny41 would have us do, you would say pfft, it's nothing, insignificant compared to the millions of ICE cars sold.

 

However, if you look at the trend, it points to what is important, people were switching their allegiance from ICE to EV.

 

It's the same with BMW, their EV sales increase in the article is 40%. That is the trend.

 

If we look at all EV sales in Thailand, a similar pattern emerges.  You have to look at EV sales compared to ICE cars.  You can't look at EV sales alone.  So the best metric for buyer behaviour is to look at all the new cars sold and in particular look at the percentage of EV's out of the whole and the percentage of ICE as a whole.

 

January is unusual and had to be discounted for obvious reasons (subsidy ending and big push to register 2023 cars).

 

So we have February, March, April, May & June.  In each of those months the market share of EV's increased over the previous month and correspondingly, the market share of ICE cars decreased each month.

 

The trend is clear, of all those people choosing to buy a new car, a greater percentage of them every month chose an EV over an ICE.

 

Why are people choosing EV's over ICE?  The advantages are clear, they cost 20% of an ICE car to refuel.  You can wake up every morning to a full tank. They drive better, they are as quiet as a Rolls Royce, there is no vibration from the engine.  They are fast, there is a direct relationship between acceleration & pleasure.  In Thailand, they cost about the same.

 

Why are people choosing ICE over EV? It's either FUD (fear uncertainty & doubt) over things like Will the battery fail? Will it catch fire? Will it depreciate really badly? Can I make long trips? Or it could be that their usage pattern makes it more difficult to own an EV, they may live in a condo, most of their trips are long distance.  The other reason is VFM, Value for Money (but not in Thailand).

 

America and EU apply tariffs on Chinese EV's, so the great VFM advantage disappears. FUD & the battery issue is being addressed by manufacturers, MG just gave a lifetime warranty on their batteries, others may follow suit. Catching fire is about education, it's a fact proven with statistics from several countries that EV's catch fire a lot less than ICE cars, more than 10 times less.  Depreciation in some countries is an issue, in Thailand and Norway it isn't.  I recently sold an MG EP+ and I had to fight off potential buyers, it sold to the first caller.  I am looking for a second-hand ORA Good Cat for one of my daughters, they are too expensive for me, I will probably buy new.

 

I have a 76 year old lady friend.  A couple of months back she bought a new MG4 X-Power, she can't charge at home as she lives off grid.  She goes to PTT and fast charges her car whilst she has a coffee in Amazon, it suits her lifestyle but it doesn't suit everybody.  She doesn't think twice about driving to Chiang Mai for a weekend.

 

As more and more people switch to EV's their friends and neighbours see they have them and hear good reports and they make the switch too.  Look at California and Norway.  Thailand is leading the way in Asia for a very simple reason.  You can buy a high-quality Chinese EV at the same price or less than an ICE equivalent because there are no tariffs.

 

There are a lot of us on this forum who drive EV's, we are not all stupid.

 

 

 

Listing a Car on Guy Fawkes Day 5th November 2023 priced at B699,000 or nearest offer and then listing again on January 21st 2024 at a reduced price of B599,000 and finally selling 30th January 2024 doesn't sound like there was many buyers biting at the B699,000 price

November 5th 2023 B699,000

Lucklly it was sold before MG reduced the new price to B671,000

 

[JBChiangRai]

9 minutes ago, vinny41 said:

Listing a Car on Guy Fawkes Day 5th November 2023 priced at B699,000 or nearest offer and then listing again on January 21st 2024 at a reduced price of B599,000 and finally selling 30th January 2024 doesn't sound like there was many buyers biting at the B699,000 price

November 5th 2023 B699,000

Lucklly it was sold before MG reduced the new price to B671,000

 

I think I already explained I listed it for a very high price before I was ready to sell it, and when my new car arrived I set it at a realistic price. You know this Vinny.

 

The car lost a very respectable 21% in its first year, inline with an ICE car.

[vinny41]

4 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I think I already explained I listed it for a very high price before I was ready to sell it, and when my new car arrived I set it at a realistic price. You know this Vinny.

 

The car lost a very respectable 21% in its first year, inline with an ICE car.

As I stated you were lucky to sell when you did before MG reduced the price by B100,000 which has a knock on effect with resale values and increases depreciation

MG EP Plus was launched November 2021 priced at  998,000 baht

Current price is B671,000  which is a 32.7% reduction in price or B327,000