Thailand passes Canada in car production
Asian nation produced 68% more cars in January than a year earlier

Canada's heft as a maker of automobiles is shrinking, and a new analysis of the world's car industry from Scotiabank suggests we're barely in the Top 10, leapfrogged by Thailand.

In his monthly report, the bank's economist Carlos Gomes says concerted efforts by the Thai government to build up production seem to be working, as the Asian nation produced 68 per cent more cars in January 2013 than it did the same month a year earlier.

Unlike Canada, which exports most of its cars, some 60 per cent of Thai-made vehicles are for the domestic market. And booming demand thanks to a new-car buyer's rebate that the Thai government has implemented until June 2013 is pushing the country to make even more cars to keep up with demand.

China still leads
The Thai Federation of Industries expects vehicle production to jump 43 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, and a government official recently stated that Thailand could build 2.8 million vehicles this year, up from 2.4 million last year.

Full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/03/06/business-scotia-auto-car.html

-- CBCnews 2013-03-07

Thailand better wake up and start re-building their inferstructure with all the flooding and smells in there streets, people etc. They are a country that is growing fast and must stop the under the table payoff crap that all the world knows happens. They do not want to be another Mexico...

A record that in fifty years time will probably be highly criticized, perhaps with the Canadian people, more are riding, walking ,using public transport, maybe North America is now scaling down to a one car family , due more to costs that anything.

Thailand better wake up and start re-building their inferstructure with all the flooding and smells in there streets, people etc. They are a country that is growing fast and must stop the under the table payoff crap that all the world knows happens. They do not want to be another Mexico...

Stopped taking your medication again ??

Thailand better wake up and start re-building their inferstructure with all the flooding and smells in there streets, people etc. They are a country that is growing fast and must stop the under the table payoff crap that all the world knows happens. They do not want to be another Mexico...

Despite its problems, Mexico is a substantially wealthier nation than Thialand, the poor are (overall) not as poor and the middle class a lot wealthier.

Edited March 7, 201313 yr by fire and ice

A record that in fifty years time will probably be highly criticized, perhaps with the Canadian people, more are riding, walking ,using public transport, maybe North America is now scaling down to a one car family , due more to costs that anything.

Almost everyone has a car in Canada, except the really poor. We do like to ride bikes and take more public transit. Our cities and governments are staring to add more bicycle lanes and more trains and buses. But it really is terrible to use these in the winter. (except places like Vancouver) BUT!! Bangkok alone has almost half the population of Canada!! In an country that would in fit in our smallest province!! (a little exagerrated but you get the picture) I think it is terrible the Thai government is trying to get more people into cars, when so many of us are trying to get people out of them!!

Canada exports most of the cars it produces, so it has nothing to do with Canadian consumer habits. Cars are pretty important to us Canucks - 10 months of winter and 2 months of bad skating.

Thailand incentivizing MORE people to buy new cars to add to the already congested streets. Totally insane. When will we learn that our cancerous infinite growth consumption has got to stop.

Thailand better wake up and start re-building their inferstructure with all the flooding and smells in there streets, people etc. They are a country that is growing fast and must stop the under the table payoff crap that all the world knows happens. They do not want to be another Mexico...

They have a long way to go to get to the status of Mexico... They remind me of Mexico in the 60's.

Many of the people buying cars on the 100,000 baht scheme are people who can't afford a car, but couldn't resist the 100k handout. I expect an avalanche of defaults. One good thing is that the ridiculously high, used vehicle prices here are bound to start coming down.

Thailand doesn't design or brand cars. The companies belong to foreign interests, ie Japan. The real money is being made by those foreign owners, and a few Thai insiders. The people of Thailand are being rewarded with relatively low paid manufacturing jobs, and gobs of new debt as they try to buy these cars.

Most cars built in Thailand are sold in Thailand and most are commercial vehicles; 1 ton or more trucks. Many are being bought with the financial incentives given to Thais. We'll see what happens when the financial incentives expire in June. Will the Thai government continue them at a high cost for both the consumer and the government, or will the government allow unit manufacturing to fall?

In the 1997 crash, car manufacturing in Thailand fell by 75%. Link

The cars, while dependable as Japanese etc. cars are, are built to crap standards and don't much sell in the West. In fact most of them don't meet Western legal standards for emissions or crash tests.

Canada has less than 1/2 the population of Thailand, but exports a greater percentage of its output. I bought a new Chevy Impala about 3 years ago only to later find that it was built in Ontario, Canada. It's a good, larger, heavy car that meets all pollution and safety requirements. Even so it gets more than 30 MPG on regular gas.

Thailand wouldn't have a clue how to design or build this for the Western market. Japan or S. Korea or Canada or the UK would.

Another thing. The talk is of who "builds" the most cars, not which country owns the plants or designs the cars and the machinery to build them with, or which companies make the profits.

General Motors in the US builds cars in more than 35 countries now, but the profits go right back to GM. What trickles down to the countries boasting of building the cars are some low paid jobs, except for in Canada and the UK.

So "who builds" and "who designs and owns" are two different things.