Since the beginning of FY2024, moves by Japanese OEMs to downsize their production systems in Thailand, a stronghold of Japanese OEMs, have become apparent.

Starting with Subaru, Suzuki and Honda have announced their intention to downsize one after another. Subaru and Honda plan to close their finished vehicle plants, while Honda plans to consolidate its two finished vehicle plants into one.

Thailand is saturated with demand for cars, and other ASEAN countries also have promising markets with large populations, such as Ndonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, but the redistribution of wealth is not functioning well and the potential for significant growth in the near future is low. Japanese OEMs had been anticipating the growth in demand for cars in ASEAN and had built up their finished vehicle production capacity ahead of time, but this is thought to have become redundant; if demand in ASEAN is not expected, they will need to find a way to export overseas, but Subaru, Suzuki and Honda have not been able to produce enough surplus production to cover their excess capacity. However, Subaru, Suzuki and Honda were unlikely to be able to secure enough export volume to cover their excess production capacity.

Furthermore, since Subaru and Suzuki are closing their plants, there is a possibility that the personnel with car production skills who were working there will be transferred to Chinese OEMs such as BYD. The loss of human resources that have been trained and nurtured in the Japanese automobile industry ecosystem may be significant.