The cabinet approved a 41-billion-baht budget

Chatrudee Theparat

The cabinet approved a 41-billion-baht budget to subsidize the purchase of electric cars in EV 3.5 package and EV 3 package.

Deputy Government Spokesperson Rudklao Suwankiri said the cabinet approved a 41-billion baht to subsidize consumers for the purchase of EV cars from a central budget in fiscal 2024 and regular budget in fiscal 2025-2026. Of the total, it includes 34 billion baht for EV 3.5 package and 7 billion baht for EV3 package.

Under the program, she said the EV package EV 3.5 subsidized will be kept at not more than 100,000 baht per unit for EV pick-up truck and passengers, taking effect on January 2, 2024.

The governent also approved a seven billion-baht budget to subsidize the purchase of EV. The cabinet yesterday approved to subsidize the purchase of not over 10,000 baht a unit of pick-up truck and passengers.

Narit Therdsteerasukdi, the secretary general of the Board of Investment (BoI) and the executive committee secretariat of the National EV Policy Board, said the subsidies will be provided for electric passenger cars priced at not more than 2 million baht, with a battery capacity of 50 kWh subsidized for 100,000 baht in the first year, 75,000 baht in the second year, 50,000 baht in the third to the fourth year.

EV pick-up truck priced at not over 2 million baht with a battery capacity of 50 kWh will be subsidized for 100,000 baht per unit for through four years only produced domestically.

For electric motorcycles cars priced at not over 150,000 baht, with a battery capacity of not less than 3 kWh will be subsidized for 10,000 baht per unit for four years.

Consumer subsidies would be scaled back from the current range of 70,000 to 150,000 baht per unit to between 50,000 and 100,000 baht in EV3 package.

Import tariffs will also be reduced at not more than 40% for CBUs imported priced at not over 2 million baht between 2024 and 2025. And excise tax will be reduced to 2% from currently 8% for EVs priced at not over 7 million baht.

The Excise Department projected the number of 830,000 units EV cars will welcome the move, with 454,000 units of passengers, 346,000 of motorcycles cars and 30,000 of pick-up trucks.

The National EV Policy Board chaired by Mr. Srettha Thavisin the Prime Minister in November 1, 2023 positioned Thailand as the key regional hub for electric vehicle manufacturing, while the EV Board has approved the supporting measures for the second phase of EV promotion (EV 3.5) for 2024 - 2027.