The Impacts of the Transition to Electric Vehicles on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand’s Automotive Parts Industry

At present, countries around the world are paying attention to energy and environmental issues, especially climate change and global warming, which are partly due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide released by internal combustion vehicles. One of the key approaches is increasing the use of electric vehicles (EVs), which has become a global trend in many countries. Thailand is also one of the important countries as the world's automotive production base with most Thai entrepreneurs in the group of automotive and automotive parts manufacturers and Tier 2 and Tier 3 parts manufacturers. The purpose of the article was to investigate the impacts of the transition to EVs leading to the determination of ways to alleviate such problems. Data were collected from 329 participants who were management representatives within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand’s automotive parts industry. The research revealed several related aspects, such as attitudes and readiness of manufacturers, and short- to long-term impacts. Therefore, EVs would inevitably affect entrepreneurs in the traditional automotive industry from these effects. Thus, this paper would summarise the impacts of such changes in the automotive industry on SMEs in Thailand and act as a guideline to sustainably prepare themselves for adapting to this change.