Whats The Reason.?.

[wandrinstar]

Take 2 Cities. Lisbon .Portugal and BKK Thailand. Take 2 Car Makers. G.M. and Benz.. Both have Plants in Thailand, yet only G.M. have a Product that is suitably priced for the Taxi Market..Seems strange that the Basic Benz here is so expensive, yet parts are imported for both assembly plants .Thais have noticed the Baby Benz is a European Taxi yet the B.M. is not..It puzzles me when Europe sites Labour Costs as a major pricing factor, Benz is hopelessly overpriced here, yet G.M. are competitive. So i wonder why no Base Model Benz on Thailand's roads. Big Brother perhaps ?..

[PattayaParent]

Face.

who wants to be seen driving a Benz so cheap that taxi drivers can afford it?

[transam]

Face.

who wants to be seen driving a Benz so cheap that taxi drivers can afford it?

I was thinking the same.

[Tarric]

Face.

who wants to be seen driving a Benz so cheap that taxi drivers can afford it?

I was thinking the same.

Indeed. Also why sell 500,000 cars and make 1,000 profit per car, when you can sell 100,000 cars and make 10,000 per car. Obviously not real figures but you catch my drift.

Thailand is about prestige first and foremost when it comes to cars, if they started having Mercedes Taxi's then the rest of the Mercedes range would suffer from the loss of prestige. This may happen to BMW when they bring in their cheap FWD city cars (that is if they ever bring them to Thailand).

[wandrinstar]

See all your points, but a C200 is 26K.GBP in England, thats 1283726.00 Mill Bht here according to my calk.Cost Here 2.2.Mill... If you take an Audi or Range Rover,not made here, but with expensive European Labour Costs, add the Hi Thai import duty it balances out near enough.. There seems to be a Few Beer Tokens getting lost somewhere. Dont Mention the War. Sorry, Cruze.

[Tarric]

See all your points, but a C200 is 26K.GBP in England, thats 1283726.00 Mill Bht here according to my calk.Cost Here 2.2.Mill... If you take an Audi or Range Rover,not made here, but with expensive European Labour Costs, add the Hi Thai import duty it balances out near enough.. There seems to be a Few Beer Tokens getting lost somewhere. Dont Mention the War. Sorry, Cruze.

I think the price depends a great deal on who you are and your race. My mother who is half Thai was at the motor show and she was looking at a C200, the dealers there said she could drive away in a new one for 1.6mil. So I think there is a great deal of play in the pricing as there is dealing with any car dealer anywhere in the world.

[trotbot]

Excise tax mainly, it makes an expensive vehicle even more costly. MB imports a lot of parts from Stuttgart, GM have a much bigger proportion locally sourced, which is cheaper.