Suzuki and Subaru closed their factories in Thailand. Japanese cars are also being chased by Chinese brands in ASEAN.

Japanese cars are important participants in the global automobile market. Leading company Toyota has been the global automobile sales champion for four consecutive years, and in 2023 it exceeded 10 million vehicles.

Everything that rises must fall, which is the ultimate truth of the development of all things.

It is in these few years that Japanese cars have gradually declined in China, the world's largest automobile market. From January to June 2024, Japanese car sales in China fell by about 13%. The three major main forces of Toyota, Honda and Nissan all retreated, and Suzuki, Subaru, Mazda and Mitsubishi disappeared.

If Japanese cars were only defeated in the Chinese market, they might not have such a strong sense of crisis. However, in recent years, as Chinese brands have entered Southeast Asia, another traditional large market for Japanese cars has also begun to be severely impacted. Recently, Suzuki and Subaru, two major brands, both announced that they would close their factories in Thailand.

The reasons for closing factories are insufficient capacity utilization, declining market share, and poor sales prospects. Moreover, these two Japanese manufacturers are not the only ones to close factories in Thailand. Honda Motor also recently announced that its Ayutthaya plant in Thailand will stop production by 2025.

It is normal for automobile manufacturers to choose to add or close automobile factories according to their operating conditions. However, the shrinkage of Japanese cars in the Thai market is due to an unprecedented reason: Chinese brands are coming.

Like the Chinese market, the Thai automobile market is also undergoing an energy transition from oil to electricity.

In 2023, Thailand's electric vehicle sales will reach 76,000 units, accounting for 18% of the total automobile market. This number may not seem large, but considering that Thailand's electric vehicle sales in the previous year were only 9,671 units, the 7-fold annual growth rate is unique in the global new energy market.

In the process of transformation of the Thai automobile market, Chinese new energy manufacturers have become the biggest promoters and beneficiaries. In 2023, Chinese new energy automobile manufacturers accounted for more than 80% of the Thai electric vehicle market, while Japanese manufacturers accounted for less than 1%.

This is the most troublesome part for Japanese manufacturers. When the game is in the middle, they suddenly find that the chessboard has changed from Japanese shogi to Chinese chess. The Japanese are completely confused. How can you change the chessboard in the middle of a game?

The chessboard was replaced by the Chinese, and now only the Chinese in the world have the ability to replace it.

If fuel vehicles and electric vehicles develop at the same time, then Japan sells Japanese products and China sells Chinese products, and both will be fine. However, in the market of any country, electric vehicles and fuel vehicles are either one or the other.

This means that the Japanese car brands that have closed their factories one after another have actually begun to withdraw from Thailand, and the future no longer belongs to them.

In many people's stereotypes, Thailand is just a small country. Compared with China, the United States and the European Union, the scale of Thailand's automobile industry can indeed be regarded as a small one, but in the global automobile industry chain, Thailand plays an important role.

Thailand has the most complete automobile industry chain in Southeast Asia and is also the largest automobile producer in Southeast Asia, with an annual output of about 2 million vehicles, exported to more than 40 countries. At the same time, Thailand has signed free trade agreements with other ASEAN countries, Australia, New Zealand, and countries in the Middle East, and cars produced in Thailand can enjoy zero export tariffs.

If Chinese manufacturers occupy the Thai market, it is equivalent to seizing the huge market of more than 600 million people in ASEAN. Taking over Japanese brands here is comparable to the "robbery" move in Go.

Over the past few decades, Japanese automakers have played an extremely important role in the Southeast Asian market, with their market share in Thailand once approaching 90%. In the era of fuel vehicles, it is extremely difficult for auto brands from other countries to enter the iron wall built by Japanese automakers in the Southeast Asian market.

But now the chessboard has changed and we have entered the new energy era. The tricks that Japanese manufacturers are familiar with are no longer effective. Only Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturers can use these tricks and play them well.

Authoritative data shows that China exported 1.727 million new energy vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 61.5%. Thailand became the second largest export destination for China's new energy vehicles after Belgium.

Thailand and Belgium are the two major bridgeheads for China's automobile exports, one facing ASEAN and the other targeting the EU. And this is just the beginning.

Chinese brands have not been rooted in Thailand for long. On July 4, BYD announced the completion of its Thai factory, and other domestic manufacturers' factories are also under construction. In other words, relying solely on imported cars, Chinese manufacturers have captured more than 80% of Thailand's new energy market share.

As Chinese manufacturers' factories in Thailand gradually go into production, the prices of the models they launch will be further reduced, and their influence in the local area will inevitably grow, and they will drastically harvest the market share of Japanese cars.

In the past, Japanese manufacturers had a strong dominance in Southeast Asia. In addition to the strong performance of their products, their control over the local industrial chain was also an important reason. Chinese manufacturers' factories in Thailand also followed suit, directly exporting a complete industrial chain.

Take the recently completed BYD factory in Thailand as an example. The factory has an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, including the production of four major processes and parts for the whole vehicle. At the same time, Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturers have also built battery production plants in Thailand.

One thing we must note is that there are no hidden "secrets" in the automotive industry. Whether it is China or Japan, the development of overseas markets is "open cards". Japanese automakers are fully aware of the development strategies of Chinese manufacturers in Thailand, but they have never been able to put them into practice.

Japanese manufacturers have been working in the Southeast Asian market for many years and have deep roots. The real breakthrough of Chinese manufacturers in going overseas will not be until 2021. It will take another three to five years to defeat the main force of Japanese cars in Southeast Asia.

Things change over time. The confrontation between the Chinese and Japanese auto industries in Thailand has sounded the clarion call for our all-out offensive in the "Liaoshen Campaign". As Chinese automakers continue to accelerate their overseas expansion, perhaps, by this time next year, it will be the turn of the Japanese big brother Toyota to start closing factories.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.