The government of Thailand wants to see at least 800,000 fuel efficient cars produced in the country annually by 2015.
Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Tata and Toyota have already joined the program and received government approval for their investments. The latest company to apply to join the program is Volkswagen. Volkswagen had been trying to set up an alliance with Proton in Malaysia but those talks fell through last year. Volkswagen still wanted a location in South-east Asia besides China to build cars. The German manufacturer has previously indicated its intent to build variants of its New Small Family (NSF) cars in several locations around the world. The NSF cars were previewed with the three up! concepts that debuted at auto shows in Frankfurt, Tokyo and Los Angeles last fall. Lower cost NSF variants for developing markets will likely be built closer to those markets. That is probably the vehicle that Volkswagen has in mind for the Thai venture.
[Source: Wards Auto World]
Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Tata and Toyota have already joined the program and received government approval for their investments. The latest company to apply to join the program is Volkswagen. Volkswagen had been trying to set up an alliance with Proton in Malaysia but those talks fell through last year. Volkswagen still wanted a location in South-east Asia besides China to build cars. The German manufacturer has previously indicated its intent to build variants of its New Small Family (NSF) cars in several locations around the world. The NSF cars were previewed with the three up! concepts that debuted at auto shows in Frankfurt, Tokyo and Los Angeles last fall. Lower cost NSF variants for developing markets will likely be built closer to those markets. That is probably the vehicle that Volkswagen has in mind for the Thai venture.
[Source: Wards Auto World]
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