Future Directions of Electric Vehicles and the Thai Automobile Industry

Abstract

“If we talk about the vehicles in the future, it’s impossible to forget the electric cars, so-called Electric Vehicles (EV) or Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV)”. EV means a car using only electric power from its battery. Nowadays, we are in the era of difficulties, so-called in Thai “the expensive cost of the living era”. Today, we face the augmentation of oil prices, the increase of labor wage, and the global warming phenomena. Thailand -as one of the world’s principal automobile part production and assembly bases- must adapt to the world’s current need for new and intelligent technologies. The government continues to support the automobile industry by implementing a plan to promote the use of EV. The government aims to reach a target of 1.2 billion EV cars by 2036. This emphasizes that the EV will become a prosperous “new industry”. It will strongly augment the overall economy of the country. For these reasons, the researcher is interested in studying the future directions of electric vehicles and the Thai automobile industry in order to help the Thai automobile industry develop to the international standard.