GAC Group’s Yinpai battery unit opened its Thailand plant in Chonburi on 29 October, with the first locally assembled pack coming off the line. It is the group’s first battery pack facility outside China and completes local pairing of vehicle assembly and pack supply in the country.
Phase one is planned at 7,000 packs a year, feeding the Aion Y Plus produced in Thailand. Space is reserved for a second phase that would take annual capacity to 20,000 packs.
Copying the domestic process, not just the hardware
The Thai plant will adopt Yinpai’s domestic pack manufacturing process and quality management system rather than a simplified local variant, according to the company. GAC says local pack supply shortens delivery times and stabilises the overseas supply chain.
Yinpai is the battery arm of GAC, which began work on battery systems and management systems in 2011 and later extended into cell development, cell production and pack assembly. Its domestic plant came online in 2023, and the 300,000th pack rolled off the Guangzhou line just before the Thai plant opened.
The incentive logic
Thailand has used the EV3.5 package to pull electric vehicle manufacturing onshore, conditioning support on increasing local content. For Chinese groups expanding across Southeast Asia, the pattern is shifting from complete knock down assembly toward local supply of core components.
Pack assembly is the cheapest step to localise, since it needs real estate, testing and process discipline rather than a cell fab. Cell sourcing for the Thai line was not disclosed, which leaves the more capital intensive question open.
For GAC the plant currently serves existing Aion models. Whether the capacity reaches 20,000 depends on Southeast Asian demand and the pace of the group’s overseas business.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Gasgoo report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202611/3I70476784C109.shtml.