Foxconn and PTT Partner to Bring EV Production to Thailand

It’s always interesting to watch new technologies being introduced and the existing manufacturers vie with new rivals to get their products to market. The vehicle market is no exception to that, and at the moment we have two disruptive technologies being introduced in almost the same timeframe – the electrification of transport and autonomous vehicles. In many cases, existing vehicle manufacturers have been slow to get off the mark, leaving space for new entrants to gain some traction. In this instance, a serious challenge came from large tech companies. Google/Alphabet, Apple and Uber, were quick off the mark to start research. Brand new companies also are interested in capturing a piece of the pie, including the undisputed early technology leader Tesla. Other new startups including VM, Nikola, Rivian and Neo have all received billions of dollars in start up capital to launch new vehicle designs. The market is starting to get a bit congested now the traditional vehicle makers have launched their own roadmaps to bring electric vehicles to market and made announcements on autonomous technology. However, the development of a high-tech vehicle may be an entirely different proposition to getting millions of them in showrooms around the world and making a profit.

In fact, that is one area where traditional vehicle manufacturers may have an advantage is mass manufacturing capabilities. Numerous stories from Tesla have shown that even though the company has market leading technology, putting it together fast enough to meet customer expectations is a bit more difficult. I’d expect other startups who wish to ramp up to manufacturing for the mass market will have a similar problem in time. One solution might be to outsource the manufacturing altogether. That is the prediction of electronics manufacturing behemoth Foxconn and PTT, the largest power supplier in Thailand. Together the two companies hope to partner to build a “Detroit of the East” in the south Asian nation. The partners will collaborate in setting up an open platform for producing electric vehicles and key components to serve the electric vehicle sector in Thailand, which is expected to start producing vehicles in 2024. Manufacturers that wish to assemble electric vehicles will be able to access the entire value chain of services offered by the joint venture being set up as part of this project. The intent is to help manufacturers not only access EV-specific services but also launch new models more quickly at a competitive cost.

The two companies won’t stop at the outsourcing of manufacturing services. The first customer at the new plant in the east of Thailand is likely to be a new operation that has just been established called Horizon plus, which is 60% owned by PTT and 40% owned by Foxconn. Horizon Plus plans to manufacture up to 150,000 electric vehicles a year by 2030 using a chassis platform that has been developed by Foxconn.