Southeast Asia’s BEV Revolution: Are Car Shoppers Ready to Skip Gas for Electric?

With a population nearly twice that of the US and growing economies that are lifting people into the middle class, the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand are increasingly important markets for global automakers. Looking at the experience of telecom companies in developing markets, where these markets skipped landlines altogether and went straight to wireless, a question many automakers are asking is whether they’ll see something similar with the adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

We recently surveyed nearly 8,000 consumers across Southeast Asia to provide guidance on this question. The resulting EVForward® Southeast Asia Snapshot report contains intriguing findings on the pace of BEV adoption and, for the first time in an EVForward study, examines purchase behaviors of first-time vehicle buyers. As we’ve seen in our EVForward studies in the US and Europe, while there are some broad consumer trends, significant regional differences exist that require a nuanced approach to product development, marketing and sales.

Southeast Asian Car Buyers Are Thinking “BEV”

Because consumers don’t always do what they say they’re going to do (known colloquially as the “say-do” gap in market research), we built EVForward powertrain purchase propensity models to accurately predict consumer behavior. Compared with a BEV purchase likelihood of 50 (on a 0-to-100 scale) among new-car buyers in the US and a range of 51–57 across Europe’s big five markets (Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain) known as the EU5, buyers in the five Southeast Asian countries we surveyed have an impressive BEV purchase propensity of 68–81.

This is consistent with higher BEV opinion, practicality and stated consideration across these countries than we see in the US and EU5. First-time vehicle buyers in Southeast Asia have slightly lower BEV opinion, practicality and stated consideration scores than current car owners in Southeast Asia, but first-time buyers still have a higher propensity to purchase a BEV than new-car buyers in the US and EU5. This lends credence to the idea that the telecom experience will be repeated in automotive—first-time car buyers in Southeast Asia are likely to skip over owning a petrol-powered vehicle to one powered by electrons.

Market Nuances Regarding BEV Powertrain and Charging Questions

Despite the strong consideration of BEVs, many potential buyers still have questions or concerns about the powertrain. In assessing both the prevalence of those concerns and the degree to which the concerns may keep people from actually purchasing a BEV, we found that buyers in Indonesia and Vietnam in particular need reassurance around:

• Charge time
• Access to charging, both at home and in public
• Charging convenience

While these concerns are particularly pronounced in these two markets, they reflect a broader finding that consumers in Southeast Asia perceive the BEV charging experience as lacking. While 84% of buyers across these five markets notice public charging in their day-to-day lives, 73% say that more public chargers are needed.

Expected BEV benefits are another area where marketing needs to be tailored to each country. For example, while lower operating cost is the most expected benefit across the region, buyers in the Philippines rank environmental benefits as their top expectation while buyers in Vietnam expect innovative technology from BEVs.

The Growing Influence of Asian Brands in Southeast Asia’s BEV Market

Overall, we see strong awareness, opinion and consideration of BEVs from Asian manufacturers across Southeast Asia. However, as with BEV barriers and benefits, each country displays its own brand dynamics among buyers.

A number of Chinese brands fare extremely well against more established automakers, with Wuling cracking the top five for consideration in Indonesia and BYD doing likewise in Malaysia and Thailand. Buyers in Vietnam show an extremely strong affinity for local brand VinFast: awareness and opinion of VinFast ranks first and consideration is nearly twice as high as for second-place Toyota. Tesla has the strongest awareness, opinion and consideration in Malaysia and Thailand.

How Our EVForward Southeast Asia Snapshot Study Informs Strategic Decisions for Brands

Our EVForward Southeast Asia Snapshot study provides much greater depth on buyer profiles and brand dynamics than we can cover in a blog. If you’re interested in joining the other major automotive brands that are leveraging these insights to develop a strategy to capture a strong share of the growing Southeast Asian BEV market, fill out the form below to connect with one of us.

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About the EVForward® Southeast Asia Snapshot Study

The EVForward Southeast Asia Snapshot was conducted among a sample of 7,936 respondents in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam ages 18 to 80 between June 27 and July 26, 2024. The data were weighted by country, age and gender to match the demographics of the new-vehicle buyer population and by vehicle segment and first-time buyers to match current vehicle sales. The sample for this research comes from an opt-in online panel. As such, any reported margins of error or significance tests are estimated and rely on the same statistical assumptions as data collected from a random probability sample. Escalent will supply the exact wording of any survey question upon request.