Kia mulls EV plant in Thailand to take on Toyota and BYD with affordable electric cars
Can Kia challenge Toyota, which has dominated the market in Thailand, with affordable EVs? Chinese automakers like BYD are already stealing market share, but Kia is in talks over a new EV plant in Thailand that could help position itself as an early leader.
Affordable electric cars are coming
Kia has already revamped the brand as the industry transitions to electric with a new logo and design.
The Korean automaker is also seeing early success with its first three-row electric SUV, the EV9. Meanwhile, Kia has bigger (or, smaller and more affordable) plans.
Kia revealed a new EV lineup at its first EV Day in October. It confirmed that the EV5 electric SUV, a Volvo EX30 rival, will start at $35,000.
Two new concepts were unveiled at the event: the Kia EV3 and EV4. The EV3 is an electric crossover influenced that essentially shrinks the EV9 into a more compact and affordable package.
According to Kia, the EV4 is “an entirely new type of sedan.” Although its four doors suggest it is a sedan, the design stands as a symbol of innovation.
The new EVs are part of Kia’s plans to launch a wide-ranging EV lineup with prices from $30,000 to $80,000. Kia’s smaller EV5, EV4, and EV3 will be priced below $50,000 to promote widespread adoption of EVs.
Kia to take on Toyota, BYD with new EV plant in Thailand
Kia may bring these low-cost EVs to overseas markets like Thailand, where legacy automakers like Toyota have traditionally dominated sales.
According to two government sources (via Reuters), Kia is in talks to build an EV plant in Thailand to gain an early lead in the Southeast Asian nation.
The sources, who wished to remain anonymous, said the discussions were ongoing and incentive-based. “They have a serious proposal that they’ve come with,” one of the sources said. “The ball is in their court.”
Kia and Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) have yet to confirm. However, Thailand’s BOI said Kia was considering investing in the nation after media reports suggested the automaker moved in another direction.
Thailand is Asia’s largest car maker and exporter. The nation is seeing a surge in EV sales with hefty incentives, tax breaks, and other measures to promote domestic production. Thailand wants 30% of the vehicles built in the country to be electric by 2030.
Tesla is also in talks with Thailand over a new plant that could involve EV and battery production, according to an official earlier this week.
Although legacy automakers like Toyota and Honda have long dominated the market, Chinese automakers have committed to over $1.44 billion in EV investments.
BYD, the global EV leader, was Thailand’s best-selling electric car brand last year. Its Atto 3 electric SUV was the top-selling EV, with over 19,200 models handed over. The company’s first plant in the region is expected to begin production this year. Once up and running, BYD aims to produce 150,000 EVs a year.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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