Lavaron Sangsnit, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance, said the Excise Department has submitted the “trade in an old car for a new pickup” scheme to the subcommittee that screens actual spending of loan funds.
Pending approval, the scheme will go to the loan-spending screening committee for review, then to the Cabinet.
The preliminary details are as follows: owners would trade in an old vehicle for either an electric pickup or one that can run on B20 diesel. This is part of the government’s scheme to support the broader energy transition and maintain Thailand’s position as the region’s automotive industry hub.
Scrapping old vehicles shouldn’t be a challenge, as Thailand has enough capacity to dispose of 10,000 vehicles annually.
The scheme’s budget is around 6 billion baht. At a subsidy of 40,000 baht per vehicle, this would cover approximately 150,000 new vehicles. Beyond this, the Excise Department has also proposed a scheme to support 100 percent electric motorcycles, which it has submitted to the screening committee alongside the trade-in scheme.
Once approved, the scheme can launch quickly, and the review process shouldn’t take more than two weeks.
Key Takeaway
Pickups are at the core of Thailand’s auto industry, and Japanese manufacturers built the country into a regional production hub around them. In the past few years, though, high household debt and tighter lending have hit domestic sales, and Chinese EV makers have moved into the market. Banks have sharply tightened auto-loan approvals for pickups, a segment that has long depended on hire-purchase financing, contributing to a decline in pickup sales in recent years amid an ailing economy and high household debt.
Figures from the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) showed that domestic pickup sales fell by 7.11 percent year on year to 10,315 units in September, whilst overall vehicle sales rose by 14.28 percent.
The slump reflects more than a weak economy: it points to structural problems in the industry. The scheme does nothing to ease the financing squeeze, but it could help push Thailand’s pickup fleet towards cleaner vehicles.
