Sammitr Group Holding has formed a joint venture with a Chinese company to join the government's electric vehicle (EV) scheme with a budget of 5.5 billion baht to assemble eco-friendly big trucks.
Patcharin Posirisuk, chief executive of subsidiary Sammitr Smart Mobility Co, said Sammitr made an agreement with one of China's "big three" companies to enter the EV scheme and submitted the EV application to the Board of Investment (BoI) last December.
The process is under BoI consideration, but Mrs Patcharin withheld the name of the company from China because the name of the joint venture has yet to be settled.
"The Chinese company holds a majority stake in the new joint venture, as it will provide and transfer some EV technology to be assembled in Thailand, while Sammitr owns 40% and will be in charge of the assembly line and the domestic market," she said.
Sammitr's plan is the first EV project in the commercial vehicle segment. Other applications and approved projects are focused on passenger cars.
Mrs Patcharin said planned capacity for electric trucks is 30,000-100,000 units a year and the plant is to be built in Krathum Baen district, Samut Sakhon province, the location of Sammitr's existing manufacturing facility for dump trucks, trailers and semitrailers, plus related components.
Two sizes of electrified trucks are planned, six- and ten-wheelers, equipped with lithium-ion batteries of over 200 kilowatt-hours that can go 300 kilometres at a charge.
Mrs Patcharin said Sammitr will position its electrified trucks for logistics operations, so the finished vehicles will serve business-to-business purposes for logistics operators.
"Once our project is granted BoI privileges, we plan to import some electrified trucks from the Chinese partner to test the local market and design our EV business plan," she said.
Sammitr Group Holding is divided into eight business units: trucks and trailers; auto parts; pickup conversion; parts supplier; green energy; international business; others (such as online solutions); and digital platform.
The EV business is part of the green energy unit.