Toyota plans to trial new EV pickup truck in Thailand to counter Chinese rivals BYD, Great Wall Motor
- Pickup trucks are critical to Thailand’s auto market, accounting for nearly half of all vehicle sales last year
- Chinese electric vehicle makers are rapidly gaining market share in Thailand and have pledged US$1.5 billion in investment for manufacturing
Toyota will soon test a new electric pickup truck in Thailand, its executive said, as the Japanese company strives to boost EV sales in a country where rising competition from Chinese rivals challenges its dominance.
Pras Ganesh, executive vice-president of Toyota Daihatsu Engineering & Manufacturing, said that its engineers were working on adapting its electric pickups to local conditions and building up EV R&D capacity in Thailand, one of Toyota’s five global R&D centres.
The world’s top-selling carmaker unveiled the electric version of its popular HiLux pickup truck last year but has not yet said when commercial sales would begin.
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Pickup trucks are critical to Thailand’s auto market, accounting for nearly half of all vehicle sales last year, and Toyota, according to research firm MarkLines, had a 39 per cent market share in the one-ton pickup truck segment in the first nine months of this year.