Toyota plans to sell its cheapest passenger car in Thailand

BANGKOK November 14, 2002; Arijit Ghosh writing for Bloomberg reported that Toyota Motor Corp., the world's third-biggest automaker, will start selling its cheapest passenger car in Thailand this year to step up competition with Honda Motor Co.

Toyota will sell its Soluna Vios, a revamp of an existing model, in the Southeast Asian nation for about 500,000 baht ($11,570). The company will sell three versions of the car, said Ryoichi Sasaki, president of Toyota Motor Thailand Co.

Toyota's closest rival Honda yesterday said it plans to sell its latest version of the Honda City for as low as 499,000 baht. Toyota controls 38 percent of the Thai passenger car market, with Honda having a market share of about 33 percent.

The number of vehicles on Thailand's roads is rising as record low interest rates encourage more people to buy cars. Thais will probably buy 385,000 vehicles this year, 30 percent more than last year, Toyota Motor said in September.

Toyota currently sells 1,500 units of its Soluna model in the country every month. The automaker, which will make the revamped model in Thailand, expects to export a large number of them, said Paiboon Waiquamdee, executive vice president, without giving details.

Honda, Japan's second-largest automaker, plans to double production next year of its City model to at least 50,000 units at its Thai plant, with three-fifths of the cars to be exported, the Nation reported today.

Honda, which will make the subcompact City in Thailand, will export 30,000 of the cars next year, the paper said citing Managing Director Satoshi Toshida. It expects to make 22,000 City units this year, with 7,000 of them being exported.