Chinese EV upstarts to battle Japanese heavyweights for Thailand’s pickup truck market

In the Thai beach town of Pattaya, travelers disembarking at the Bali Hai pier can hail a taxi or cram into a songthaew , a modified pickup truck. On a recent weekday, a row of shiny white songthaews stood at the pier, part of a pilot launch of Toyota Motor’s new electric vehicle truck that aims to shake up Thailand’s pickup truck market.

The Hilux Revo-e, a version of the popular workhorse Hilux, is the automaker’s first EV pickup truck. Toyota, which is under pressure from Chinese electric vehicle makers in Thailand, has said it will manufacture the Hilux Revo-e in the country by the end of 2025, and also export the vehicle. Its Japanese rival, Isuzu Motors , also plans to manufacture its electric pickup truck D-Max in Thailand, and begin exports from next year.

Thailand is one of the biggest markets in the world for compact pickups. The one-ton trucks, used to haul produce, and modified to transport goods and people, make up nearly half of total vehicle sales in the country. Toyota and Isuzu account for a lion’s share of the market. But the launch of a hybrid truck from Chinese EV maker Great Wall Motor (GWM), and the potential entry of Geely Holding and BYD, have put the Japanese firms on notice, Hajime Yamamoto, an auto analyst at Nomura Research Institute in Bangkok, told Rest of World.

“The Chinese brands want a greater presence in the Thai market, and passenger cars are only half the market. So they need to enter the pickup truck market,” he said. “Toyota and Isuzu have large manufacturing hubs in Thailand, and export to the EU and other places. The EU is banning ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles from 2035, and regulations elsewhere are also tightening, so they need to make electric trucks anyway.”

Thailand has long been an auto manufacturing and export hub dominated by Japanese brands including Toyota and Honda Motor. The Thai government aims to convert 30% of the annual output of about 2 million vehicles into EVs by 2030, and is offering incentives and tax breaks to quicken the transition. Chinese automakers , led by BYD and GWM, have already committed over $1.4 billion for EV facilities in the country, and have taken a quick lead in EV passenger vehicles in Thailand.

The Japanese automakers have been slower off the mark on EVs, producing mostly hybrids. Making electric trucks is more challenging than making EV cars, as they require larger batteries, given the weight of the vehicle and the payload capacity. Bigger batteries mean higher prices, which pickup truck users in Thailand may not be willing to pay, Yamamoto said.

10,000 The approximate number of EV charging outlets across Thailand.

“It is a very different market, as users are much more price-sensitive than EV car users,” he said. “Plus, most pickup truck users use the vehicle for long distances and for heavy loads, and there’s very little charging infrastructure up-country. EVs have already reached about 10% of passenger vehicle sales. Pickup trucks will be much slower to reach that figure because of these challenges.”

The automakers have not revealed their pricing strategy for electric trucks. Meanwhile, a broader economic slowdown in the country has hit output of pickup trucks. In the first five months of the year, automakers in Thailand produced 394,321 compact pickup trucks, a 20% decline from the same period last year, data from the lobby group Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) showed. Output for the domestic market fell nearly 50% from last year to 87,786 pickup trucks in that period.

Toyota and Isuzu, with their decades of experience selling pickup trucks in Thailand, have bigger distribution networks, including in rural areas. Launching EVs is a natural progression, Nithi Thuamprathom, founder of popular publication Autolife Thailand, told Rest of World . “These are brands that have a strong reputation for pickup trucks,” he said. But with electric trucks, it will all come down to the range. “The more they are loaded, the faster the batteries will run out, and the infrastructure like charging stations is not yet fully developed,” Nithi said.

There are about 10,000 charging outlets in fewer than 3,000 locations across Thailand, with a concentration in the cities. For Bussaba Nakpipat, a durian farmer in the eastern town of Chanthaburi, this is a problem. Bussaba and her family transport the large, spiky fruit on two Toyota Hilux trucks and one Mitsubishi pickup — all of which are diesel-powered. They sometimes drive long distances several hours a day, so switching to a fully electric truck is not feasible, she told Rest of World .

“There are days when I have to make many trips, when I have to wait in line at the distribution center to offload the produce, and there are no charging stations around,” Bussaba said. “Now, I don’t really have to worry … I pay 500 baht ($14) for almost a full tank of diesel and know that when it runs out, I can always find another gas station.”

Customers like Bussaba will probably make the shift to hybrid trucks first, to get over “range anxiety,” or the fear of having insufficient battery capacity while driving long distances, said Yamamoto. To win their trust, Toyota and Isuzu will have to test their vehicles for different conditions, Surapong Paisitpatanapong, vice chairman of FTI, told Rest of World . “The tests have to be extensive because pickup trucks are used to carry goods, often a lot of weight,” he said. “They have to be confident that they work as well as the fuel-powered models.”

Toyota’s pilot in Pattaya aims to do just that: testing the electric pickup truck for multiple use cases in different road conditions and temperatures. A songthaew, which has two rows of seats in the back, can carry about 10–12 people, with a few also hanging off the back during rush hours. The pilot is part of an agreement between Toyota and the Pattaya government to test 12 Hilux Revo-e trucks till December 2025. To meet its goal to reduce emissions, the city is open to converting all, or almost all, of its nearly 700 songthaews to EVs, Mayor Poramet Ngampichet told Rest of World . “We aim for Pattaya to be a green city, even though there are few charging stations now.”

For songthaew driver Chai, driving an electric pickup truck has meant a few changes. He charges his truck overnight at a public station, and the charging fee is quite high, he told Rest of World . “I don’t have to shell out 500 baht every two days for diesel. But I have to constantly check the battery charge level if I know I will cover a long distance that day,” Chai said.

That’s something Bussaba does not want to do. “EVs may be the answer for carbon reduction but it is not the answer for my work,” she said. “There is no point for me to risk the truck being stranded while transporting durians.” ▰

Jitsiree Thongnoi is an independent journalist based in Bangkok.