Key Points
- The fierce EV price war from China is now hurting smaller carmakers in export markets, such as Thailand.
- Chinese automaker Neta is in crisis, facing lawsuits from its Thai dealers and a bankruptcy filing by its parent company.
- Neta is failing to meet local production promises made to the Thai government as part of an incentive program.
- Market leader BYD and intense competition from a flood of other Chinese brands are putting pressure on the company.
The intense price war among Chinese electric vehicle makers is spilling over into Thailand, one of Asia’s biggest markets, and smaller brands are starting to collapse under the pressure. The Chinese automaker Neta, one of the first to enter the Thai market, is now facing a crisis, putting the country’s ambitious EV production goals at risk.
Neta is struggling to compete with the dominant player, BYD, and has been unable to meet its local production promises tied to a government incentive program. As a result, the Thai government has withheld payments from the company. The situation has gotten so bad that a group of 18 Neta dealers is now suing the automaker to recover over $6 million in allegedly unpaid debts and for failing to support their showrooms.
To make matters worse, Neta’s parent company in China filed for bankruptcy last month, sending shockwaves through its international operations. Neta’s market share in Thailand has plummeted from a peak of 12% last year to just 4% today, as its sales have been nearly halved.
This case serves as a stark warning to other smaller Chinese EV companies considering expansion abroad. The same hyper-competitive pressures and brutal price cuts that define the market in China are now being exported, and companies without BYD’s scale are finding it impossible to survive. For Thai dealers and customers, the fallout has been severe, with one dealer stating there is “no confidence” left in the brand.
