Subaru opens assembly plant in Thailand
Subaru will soon get a boost in production, particularly for Southeast Asian market units. This is in large part to the opening of the new Tan Chong Subaru Automotive (Thailand) Limited (TCSAT) plant just outside of Bangkok. Motor Image Pilipinas, the distributor of Subaru in the Philippines, invited members of the media to the formal opening of Subaru’s assembly plant in Thailand.
The Subaru assembly plant is owned in large part, by Motorimage’s parent company, Tan Chong International Limited (TCIL), which holds a 74.9 percent stake and Japan’s Subaru Corporation which holds the remaining 25.1 percent. The facility, TCSAT Limited, is located in Bangkok’s Ladkrabang Industrial Estate. The more than 100,000 square meter facility was built with an initial investment of 5B Baht and targets to manufacture and meet the demand for Subaru vehicles in Southeast Asia.
Strategically located, it’s just 30-km outside Bangkok City, 10-km from Suvarnabhumi Airport, and 100-km away from Laem Chabang Port. The plant is Subaru’s third facility, and will augment production from the Japan and Indiana (USA) plants. TCSAT will assemble completely knockeddown (CKD) units, initially starting off with the fifth-generation Subaru Forester, which is set to be shipped within Thailand and to Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Members of the Philippine media were treated to a plant tour, where we got to see everything from where the separate parts were being welded