China’s electric vehicles accelerate the layout of the ASEAN market

International Business News  –  According to reports, the Southeast Asian electric vehicle market is about to enter a period of rapid development. According to market research institutions, the total size of the electric vehicle market in ASEAN countries will be nearly 500 million US dollars in 2021, and it is expected to exceed 2.6 billion US dollars by 2027.

The report pointed out that Chinese car companies have seen business opportunities as early as several years ago and planted the seeds in Singapore’s electric vehicle market. In 2014, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research of Singapore announced that it had signed a joint laboratory agreement with BYD to jointly develop electric vehicle systems for public transportation in Singapore; in 2016, the Qianjin Bus Group used BYD-made electric buses for testing; in 2017, the first batch of vehicles using BYD models was launched. A fleet of all-electric taxis takes to the road in Singapore.

According to the report, since the beginning of 2022, Chinese companies have accelerated their deployment in Singapore’s electric vehicle market, and NIO has announced that it will set up an artificial intelligence and autonomous driving R&D center in Singapore. In April this year,  China’s Shenzhen Metro Company and a company owned by Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit announced a joint venture to form an electric vehicle service company.

According to the report, the interviewed scholars analyzed that the ultimate goal of Chinese car companies is the Southeast Asian electric vehicle market with huge potential, and Singapore is only the starting point and radiation point in the market competition.

According to Thai media reports, Chinese brands such as SAIC, Great Wall Motor, Chery, Dongfeng, Geely and Changan will successively launch new models in Thailand.

Malaysian company Feldman has announced a partnership with China’s Changan Automobile to invest in a plant in Malacca to produce electric vehicles.

Geely acquired the Malaysian car brand Proton in 2017. It is understood that Geely’s sales outlets in the Philippines are expected to expand to 40 by the end of this year, reaching a level similar to that of Japanese car brands such as Toyota, Mitsubishi and Honda.

According to the report, experts from the Yusof Isa Southeast Asia Research Institute in Singapore pointed out that although Japanese, Korean and European and American brands occupy the fuel vehicle market in Southeast Asia, they have not penetrated the electric vehicle market. These companies have already paid huge sunk costs in fuel vehicle production facilities, so they tend to continue to use existing facilities to produce fuel vehicles. This provides an opportunity for young carmakers from China and other countries to break into the Southeast Asian market and set up electric vehicle factories there.