Thailand to reduce excise tax on electric vehicle batteries

Illustrative image (Photo: https://thaiembdc.org/)

Bangkok (VNA) – A national committee onelectronic vehicle (EV) policy of Thailand, also known as the EV board, onFebruary 2 agreed in principle on a proposal to lower the excise tax on EVbatteries from the current 8% to just 1% while offering a 24 billion THB (730million USD) subsidy to the EV battery-producing industry.

The subsidy will be on a first-comefirst-served basis, Thai Minister of Energy SupattanapongPunmeechaow said, adding that the subsidy should help reduce the prices of EVbatteries and EVs overall, which will boost the country's EV-making industry.

The amount of the subsidy on offer will depend onthe size of the battery produced, Supattanapong said.

A producer of an EV battery with less than 8-gigawatt hours (GWh) capacity willreceive a subsidy of between 400 THB and 600 THB per kilowatt hour (kWh),while a factory making an EV battery of more than 8 GWh will receive between600 THB and 800 THB per kWh, he noted.

The Thai government is acceleratingthe development of renewable energy, green economy and the EV industry underits 30@30 policy in order to promote Thailand as EVproduction base in the ASEAN region. The 30@30 policy stipulates that Thailand must boostmanufacturing capacity of zero-emission vehicles, or EVs, by 30% by 2030./.

VNA