Bangkok (VNA) - The Thai cabinet has approved the allocation of 7.12 billion THB (215 million USD) from the central reserve budget for emergency and essential purposes to fund a electric vehicle (EV) subsidy programme.
Jirayu Huangsab, an advisor to the Prime Minister, said the budget will be used to subsidise EV buyers and motorcycles who already purchased their vehicles, but have not yet applied for the government subsidy under EV promotion measures.
Since the implementation of the EV promotion measures, subsidies have been disbursed for 55,000 EVs with a total amount of 6.87 billion THB. A budget of more than 5 billion THB is awaiting disbursement.
Under the first phase of the EV 3.0 promotion, the Excise Department provided subsidies of up to 150,000 THB for EVs priced less than 2 million THB, and up to 18,000 THB for electric motorcycles priced less than 150,000 THB.
The government provides these subsidies directly to car manufacturers. Once EV buyers register their vehicles, they can submit a request to the manufacturer to claim the subsidy.
Under the second phase of the EV 3.5 scheme, set to run from 2024-2027, priced less than 2 million THB with batteries of 50 kWh or larger receive a subsidy of 50,000 to 100,000 THB per vehicle, and those with batteries smaller than 50 kWh receive 20,000 to 50,000 THB per vehicle.
Based on these incentives, various manufacturers have invested to establish production bases in Thailand, with investment exceeding 80 billion THB./.
