Someone asked me to specifically write about what services would be lost with EVs, so I am going to list them (not comprehensive, but broad enough):

Services related to air intake and emission: intake manifold, intake systems, throttle plate cleaning, change of filters, sensors especially O2 sensors, exhaust emission system, catalytic converters, particulate filtering, exhaust pipes. The impact covers diagnosis to parts replacement, so the air intake compression tests, exhaust emission tests, even turbo systems, would be rendered redundant.

​Cooling system: no more radiators and cooling jacket tests, no need for temperature sensors and tests, water pumps, belts to run the pumps, no sales of coolants. What's left would be the cooling system for the batteries instead.

Ignition system services become obsolete, so no more spark plug replacements, no glow plugs, no starter motors, no alternators. There are no more carbon removal on piston rings, fuel injection system compression tests and calibrations, no more engine components machining. Services for engine lubrication becomes obsolete. No need to worry anymore about gasket leaks, getting under the car to check for oil leaks. The entire electrical system for ignition is also obsolete, and away goes the diagnostics too.

Services relating to fuel delivery system, starting from the fuel storage (in the tank) to dispensing. No more worry about fuel pumps malfunctioning, fuel gauge not working, clogged fuel lines. Even EVAP services are eliminated.
Diagnostic system becomes obsolete as EVs become fully computerized. No more OBDs. No more memorizing of codes.

Even wheel system services are reduced. Take for instance brake pads, due to the regenerative braking system, brake pads take much longer to wear out. Parking brakes become fully electronic. 4X4 systems are replaced by motors on all wheels so there is no more transfer case and related servicing.

Workshop operators, when they see this list, becomes nervous, because they find that most of what they are doing today will soon become obsolete!

​









(Photo by Yu Ruidong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

​Norway continued in 2020 to be the only market in the world where EVs outsold conventional ICE vehicles. This is now not only a monthly outcome, but EVs outsold ICE vehicles for the entire year of 2020 in Norway, holding 54% of total sales. The EV is expected to be even more dominant in 2021, and Norway is on track to become entirely electric for new car sales by 2025. This outcome is very encouraging to the EV makers, especially to the competitors to Tesla. In the past, EV and Tesla was almost synonymous, however, this has changed. Audi e-tron, and not Tesla, is the best selling EV in Norway. As the analysts in Norway says, there are now other options beside Tesla.

Norway is expected to continue to attract new EV product launches, before they are introduced to the other markets in Europe. I foresee more choices for the consumers in the years to come, and the wider variety of offers are likely to come from the traditional car manufacturers like Audi/VW, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, BMW, and probably even from PSA group. In other parts of Europe, EV sales have also increased, Germany's EV sales numbers more than tripled despite the pandemic, and despite the drop in total industry sales.

In China, though, we are likely to see Tesla reaping the fruits of their investment there. The sales increase in China will continue to fuel investor interest in their stock prices. At the point of writing, Tesla share have already reached record high of USD700. In 2020, almost half a million Teslas were delivered to customers, in 2021 it is projected to increase by at least 30%. So, Tesla is not losing sleep over Audi overtaking them in Norway.

For ICE cars, interestingly, they are also becoming more and more thirsty for energy. 12-volt batteries have regularly been upgraded to higher amps. My Honda Accord was previously fitted with 12V 45A battery but now 50A is the norm in Thailand. I project the power need to rise in the near future and more amps needed to power all the added electronics and gadgets in the car. I also foresee continued efforts to introduce mild hybrids, those 48V battery cars, and maybe some 24V cars that are needed to support the much more technologically loaded vehicles.

In short, the future looks good for EVs and 12V to 48V battery supply.

I believe that in years to come, many will still remember negative crude oil price. What this means is that someone pays to unload his crude oil stock. There was an immediate impact which halved the pump prices and made car owners like me very happy. A friend of mine asked if this will put the car electrification drive of major manufacturers on hold, since low oil prices negates the strongest argument for electric car purchase?

When we looked at the sales figures of conventional internal combustion (ICE) cars and electric cars during the pandemic, what strikes us most is that while the ICE car sales plummeted in most markets, electric car sales held quite well.

During this period, too, we witnessed Tesla’s market valuation surged and is now worth more than Toyota, Ford and GM combined. Tesla’s market capitalization is 4 times more than the best performing luxury car maker in the world, Mercedes Benz. This goes to show that the market still favors pure electric car players.

The traditional car makers faced an uphill task, even having a hard time convincing their board to keep up with the push for car electrification. During the pandemic, car sales fell sharply, and that put many car manufacturers under intense cashflow pressure. If, at the same time, the management wants the board to continue funding the expensive car electrification project without the clear and imminent payback period, you can imagine how this will turn out and true enough, in VW we saw a board tussle that nearly threw out the CEO/Chairman.

It does not help that in Germany the powerful trade union representatives sit in the board of directors, and they have to show that they fight for the workers who are in imminent danger of being replaced by the car electrification strategy. At the very least, they cannot display too much enthusiasm for car electrification.

Car electrification comes with high transitional costs, but that does not affect the pure electric car players. Hence, if we believe that electrification is going to be the inevitable outcome, then the pure players have a clear and substantial advantage, since the transition costs elude them.

All signs point to the continued and sustained growth of electric cars and it is only a matter of time they become the mainstream vehicles on the road.

​The coronavirus pandemic has caused great upheaval to the automotive industry. On the production side, capacity utilization has dropped tremendously as demand collapsed over the last few months. In major markets like the UK, France, Spain and Italy, in March and April 2020 we saw sales dropped by 80-90% year-on-year. The same goes for Japan, Singapore and Malaysia as the lockdown hit auto sales, on both passenger cars and commercial vehicles. India had practically zero sales during the lockdown period.

Besides low demand, production glitches also led to huge production management challenges. Unlike other types of products, autos have something like 10,000 parts on average and not a single missing part is allowed, and over the years many of the sourcing has been so spread out globally that any upheaval in any part of the world can affect production. However, due to the severe drop in demand, the dropped in production was not felt much yet, and dealers still carry a lot of stock.

To move the cars in a period of lockdown and movement restrictions, where showroom traffic comes to a virtual halt, dealers have to find other ways to reach out the customers, and moving online was not only the preferred options, it was the only option. Some dealers do better the others because they are better prepared. Those who have earlier invested in online sales channels have benefited, and those who were earlier reluctant to go online suddenly took on the new channel enthusiastically, frantically looking for internal resources and expertise to do so.

Moving on the online in some ways have changed the rules of the game. The traditional sales models rely heavily on showroom traffic and territorial controls, but online there is no sales boundaries and so it really does not stop a dealer from selling outside of their allocated sales territories. Also, since the emphasis is on contactless sales transactions, sales contracts, down payments are made via online transactions, insurance policies are issued online, and even cars and car keys are delivered with direct personal contacts. In China, Geely deploys drones to hand over car keys and digital manuals and subsequent interactions are conducted through social media and even service bookings are done online or even automated in some cases.

Car dealerships are assessing their future manpower needs and clearly there is a lesser need for staff, so there is likely to be quite some manpower attrition to follow soon. Those leasing real estate are also starting to evaluate the real estate costs and are questioning the high costs of city center real estate rentals, especially in the current circumstances where location is not as important anymore and sales territories mean much less to sales results.

It is interesting to watch the development of the automotive industry towards the end of this year, and one thing is certain: the industry is going through fundamental changes and the rules of the game needs to be re-written.

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine called me the EV guru in his WhatsApp message to me. He believes that I am totally an EV convert, based on my writings, and that EV shall become the mainstream within the next 5 years. His understanding is actually not correct, I am not unconvinced that EV will become main stream in the next 5 years, but within the next 10 years it will surely have a strong industry representation. I am saying this not because I have doubts about the technical superiority of EVs, but because history has taught us that for product adoption, there is still the emotional part to overcome. So what are the possible irrational emotions holding back consumers back?

前些日子，我的一位好朋友给我冠了个新头衔，称我为（电动车支持者 EV guru），之所以在网上这么称呼我是因为他从我的写作中判断我已经是百分百的皈依电动车， 认为我对电动车在不久的将来将完全取代传统内燃车这样一个预测完全赞同。说实话，对于电动车在5年内普及化这么一个预测我还真是不置可否，不是说电动车技术上还没法取代内燃车，而是因为要成为市场主流产品重点还是得取得消费者的信任和接受。电动车要成为市场主流产品之前，会遇到什么阻力呢？

Let us first start by talking about Toyota. Keen observers of Toyota would quickly realize that it is slow in its EV adoption, and before last year has not announced any concrete EV plan, choosing instead to focus solely on hybrid technology. Only recently did Toyota announce the introduction of its first EV by 2020, and up to 10 models by 2025. Some people may infer from this that even a top car maker has doubts about the EV, it is surely a valid reason to hold back on EV for the time being.

先说说丰田。关注丰田的朋友们会发现，丰田纯电动车推广比较慢。不仅如此，官方信息发布经常会间接的否定电动车，大力提倡的非电动车而是混合动力车。直到去年，丰田才公布纯电动车计划。尽管如此，第一台纯电动车型投放市场还是要等到2020年，这已经是丰田在加速推进之中。有些人可能会觉得连行业老大哥都持保留态度，那么纯电动肯定存在严重弊端。

In 2015, in announcing its “Environmental Challenge 2050” strategy, Toyota mapped out its route towards fuel cell technology, transitioning with hybrid technology which it said will last for 2 decades. However, by the end of 2017, Toyota has changed course, and has committed to speed up BEV development and aim to roll out their EV cars worldwide in their new 10-year EV strategy.

关注丰田的朋友应该还会记得，在2015年丰田曾发布过一个战略，名为“丰田环境挑战2050”，重点是丰田当时将发展方向定在了混合动力和燃料电池，纯电动车似乎被忽略不计。氢燃料电池 Hydrogen Fuel Cell 明确的时终极目标。然而两年后，也就是2017年底，丰田发布了面向2020年到2030年的挑战规划，宣布将在2020-2025年间按照中国、日本、印度、美国、欧洲的顺序在全球推出10款以上纯电动汽车。

Personally, I can understand the position that Toyota is taking, considering the huge investments it has already poured into the hybrid technology. Toyota is the undisputed number 1 for hybrid cars, and thus stand to lose the most in any erosion of the hybrid status. The other possible reason could be inferred from their previous encounter with EVs, where their RAV4-EV failed miserably, and that memory continues to linger within the boardrooms.

丰田此举是可以理解的。他们在混合动力技术方面投资巨大，忽然来个纯电动，之前的投资将打水漂。丰田在国际舞台上惯用的辩解是技术更迭需要一个过程，传统传动到纯电动必须经过混合动力这个过程。丰田的策略看似按部就班，可是市场的格局则瞬息万变。后来丰田又说纯电动技术目前还不成熟，丰田只愿拿出自己认为真正靠谱的东西。其实丰田早在70年代便开始研究电动汽车和混合动力车，并于90年代研发并销售了RAV4-EV，但这款车销量很一般。很显然，丰田在那会儿对纯电动车的态度是担心大于信心的。

Now that Toyota has decided to join the EV train, it would have to find ways to quickly recoup all the investments into hybrid technology. I recently read about Toyota’s plan to make their hybrid technology non-proprietary, so that there is greater worldwide adoption of the hybrid and that could extend the life of the hybrid technology considerably. They also will become the contract manufacturer for Suzuki Maruti hybrids, while still continuing to argue for the hybrids in India.
For the truly environmentally conscious, the question of whether the EV is really environmentally friendly continues to linger. One not only has to consider the emission from driving, but also has to take into account the environmental impact from the production of batteries and electricity. A few weeks ago, the Japanese government announced potential new methods of calculating the EV subsidies by taking into account these factors. Notwithstanding, from the technical perspective, EVs do offer much less detriment to the environment than internal combustion cars.

为了在短时间内使混合动力投资回报最大化，丰田到处张罗其混合动力技术，不断地向同行招手，希望能代生产混合动力车。举个例子，丰田将为铃木印度代工贴牌。
首先，我们来看看主要社交媒体一些针对电动车的舆论。常出现的讨论议题有消费者对现在的纯电动汽车真的环保吗提出疑问。我个人总结出来的结果是肯定的。电动车主们充电时可以充分利用夜间的谷电，对电网效率有利 。电动车在堵车的时候没有怠速损耗 。通过 regenerative braking system 能够回收制动时的能量 。电动车的反对者就提问到了发电的污染，还有生产电池和废弃电池的污染。日本政府近期的密室讨论过程中也涉及到了EV优惠政策， 将来在拟定新能源车辆的优惠政策是将把发电污染考虑在内。

The main obstacle, in my opinion, to EV becoming mainstream is more an emotional and psychological one. Much of the negative emotions towards EVs in fact arise from an acute lack of understanding of the EV technology and its application. Sadly, most of what we learn about the EV technology comes from the EV startups and of course Tesla, while the traditional key players like Toyota, VW, Honda, Ford, General Motors have been silent mostly. If these big players have played their part in educating potential car buyers, the EV adoption could be much faster.
​
其次，电动车需要跨过消费者心里障碍这个坎， 才能真正的普及起来。消费者为什么会出现心理障碍，对电动车为什么还是保留观望的态度呢？这个问题和大多数人对电动车的不认识不了解是息息相关的。缺乏了对电动车的理解和认知，某些消费者就会对电动车产生恐惧。我经常在媒体上看到攻击汽车电动化的理论，里面充分体现出他们反汽车电动化的意识型态。
我们之前在讨论汽车电动化时，是一直在技术层面上体现出电驱动的种种优势，可是消费者能不能够接受新事物新理念新产品很多时候是一个心里问题， 看看厂家能不能有效的传达信息，给消费者信心，和消费者有共识，慢慢的把汽车电动化形成大众想法，这样电动化才能尽快普及起来。

Much of my earlier arguments for EV is in the realm of technology, however, there is always the irrational consumer, and new production adoption always has to go through the process. I recognize the weaknesses of the EV technology, but in time to come, the EV prices will come down, battery technology will improve, charging infrastructure will be in place, running distances will greatly increase, and EV will undoubtedly become the mainstream. 

没有一种产品是完美的，它一定存在利与弊，电动车也不例外。他的缺点是续航里程不足，成本高，充电配套设施不完善，残值低，有些人还担心暴雨天淹水会造成电池损坏，汽车撞击时电池会爆炸等等顾虑，但是我相信在不久的将来，技术突破会断断续续的发生，电池生产成本会大幅度下降，续航里程能提升到600-800公里数，充电桩密集度将会达到消费者的需求，电动车也会成为主流车型。

Arbitration is an alternative method of dispute resolution and can be chosen over commencing a suit in court in Singapore. This article will explain:

1. The differences between arbitration, litigation and mediation
2. When arbitration might be suitable for your business dispute
3. The arbitration procedure
4. How to have your business dispute submitted to arbitration
5. How to draft an arbitration clause

1. How is Arbitration Different from Litigation?
In ordinary litigation, your case goes before a judge in a public court who decides the outcome of your dispute. However in arbitration, you and the other party are able to choose and appoint the judge or judges (called “arbitrators”). You may choose to only appoint arbitrators who have certain qualifications, or who are of a certain nationality. You and the other party will have to pay fees to this arbitrator(s) to decide the outcome of your dispute. This is unlike litigation, where the judge himself does not charge a fee for deciding on your dispute for you. The number of arbitrators is typically 1 or 3 and is usually determined in advance when parties agree to resolve any future disputes by arbitration in their contract. For reasons of cost, it is preferable to have a sole arbitrator for low-value disputes (i.e. below S$500,000).

Also, arbitration is confidential. As it takes place in private, it is typically not reported in the press. Parties to the arbitration and arbitrators are obliged to maintain confidentiality of all matters relating to the arbitration proceedings as well as the arbitration award (explained below).

a. How is Arbitration Different from Mediation?
In mediation, you and the other party attempt to reach a settlement with the help of a neutral third- party, the mediator. He cannot give a decision and force parties to accept any particular outcome. The mediator can only facilitate the negotiation. Hence, if either of the parties give up on the mediation process, they can walk away from the mediation and take their dispute to court or arbitration. This is different from arbitration where the arbitrator makes a decision that is legally binding on the parties. Even if the parties don’t like the arbitral process, they will still be committed to it. They can’t simply walk away and choose to pursue their case in court instead.

2. When Might Arbitration be Suitable for Your Dispute?
As mentioned above, arbitration proceedings are kept confidential. Therefore, if confidentiality is important to your company, you may want to consider arbitration. For example, if you are a public listed company that is concerned about the impact of minute details of your company’s disputes on your share price, arbitration is worth considering. You may also wish to consider arbitration if your company needs funding and you are concerned that litigation searches may make lenders less likely to extend credit to your company (after finding out that your company is being sued). In this case, arbitration may be one way to keep the large contingent liabilities that your company’s disputes represent out of the public forum.

Arbitration might also be particularly suitable for your company if the other companies you do business with are located in different countries. This is because the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (i.e. a key instrument in international arbitration) has been signed by almost 160 countries around the world, including Singapore. This makes the process for enforcing an arbitral award (explained below) overseas relatively straightforward and predictable. This is compared to the process of attempting to enforce a court judgment in a foreign country, for which the corresponding applicable treaty has been ratified by only a handful of countries (excluding Singapore).

The above point is important because securing a judgment in your favour is just the first step in successfully suing another party. The next step is enforcing that judgment against their assets in whatever country their assets are. This can be the step where many otherwise meritorious claims can flounder, suffer from considerable delay or fail entirely, particularly if the country in which the assets are located has a very different legal system to the one where the judgment comes from.

3. When Might Arbitration Not be a Suitable Option for Your Dispute?
Arbitration may not be suitable for your dispute if the value of your transaction/project/deal is less than S$500,000. This is because the cost of arbitration, once you add up administrative fees, arbitrators’ fees, legal costs and disbursements, is likely to amount to several hundred thousand dollars. If you do choose to arbitrate a dispute involving a value of less than S$500,000, it may mean that you are putting your business at risk of high cost and failure for a small reward, possibly less than and insignificant to the value of your project.

Arbitration Procedure
How are arbitration rules and procedure determined?
Generally, arbitrations are conducted in accordance with a set of institutional rules selected by parties in advance. There are many different set of such rules to choose from. In Singapore, the most popular are the rules of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), a not-for-profit organisation that provides arbitration services. However, it is also possible (though seldom advisable) to run an arbitration without any set of rules. This is known as an ad-hoc arbitration.

In addition to any institutional rules selected, the arbitrator may issue procedural orders and/or terms of reference which will set out further procedural rules of a more granular nature to govern the procedure to be adopted for the arbitration. This is usually with the consent of both parties and subject to negotiation between them on the procedure they want.

Enforcement of arbitral award
An arbitral award is the decision of the tribunal at the end of an arbitration. Enforcement of an arbitral award (i.e. forcing the other party to comply with it) ordinarily involves simply registering the arbitral award with the relevant court in the jurisdiction in which the losing party’s assets are located, in accordance with the rules of court and other procedural requirements applicable in that jurisdiction.

Typically, assuming the court is in a jurisdiction which has ratified the New York Convention, the court will simply enforce the award without examining the underlying rationale of the arbitral tribunal or the procedure adopted in arriving at that award, with a few very limited and technical exceptions. Such exceptions tend to vary slightly from one jurisdiction to another.

4. How Can You Have Your Business Disputes Submitted to Arbitration?
So if that all sounds like it would work for your company, how do you get your disputes resolved by arbitration? Well while parties can agree in theory to submit their dispute to arbitration when it arises, usually when disputes arise, parties are not particularly agreeable to doing anything that the other party wants them to do. Therefore it is much more common for parties to agree to arbitration within the main contract they sign when they first enter into a business relationship with each other. This means planning in advance. While parties never like to think about what happens when a business relationship sours at the point in which they enter into it, like signing a pre-nuptial agreement when getting married, it’s generally advisable to deal with this issue at the outset to avoid a lot of uncertainty later. This typically requires an arbitration provision to be included in the dispute resolution clause of the contract.

This arbitration clause is sometimes referred to as an arbitration agreement (even though it is usually not a separate agreement) as it is essentially an agreement to arbitrate.

5. How to Draft an Arbitration Clauses/Agreements
It is generally advisable to simply copy and paste the model arbitration clause recommended by the arbitral institution of your choice into your contract. This can avoid a lot of headaches and uncertainty later. For example, the model clause for arbitrating a dispute at the SIAC can be found here.

Tweaking these standard clauses can sometimes create obstacles to securing an enforceable award. This is therefore not recommended unless being done by lawyers experienced in arbitration.
Arbitration agreements should be in writing and signed by both parties.
Considerations when drafting the arbitration clause/agreement

Where the arbitration should be conducted
You can choose the location of the arbitration (i.e. the “seat” of the arbitration) to be wherever you like. Parties typically like to select a neutral venue where neither party is domiciled.

Singapore is a popular venue due to it being a very pro-arbitration jurisdiction whose courts consistently uphold the primacy of arbitration agreements, the validity of arbitral awards and readily give effect to interim orders for various kinds of injunctive and other relief. Ultimately, the only consideration that really matters is making sure that the country you select is a signatory of the New York Convention. You can check if a country has signed the New York Convention here.

What laws should govern the arbitration
Wherever you choose to hold your arbitration, by default the arbitral law (also known as “lex arbitri”) of that jurisdiction will apply to it. So for example, if you hold your arbitration in Singapore, it will be governed by Singapore’s Arbitration Act (where both parties are domiciled in Singapore) or the International Arbitration Act (where at least one party is not domiciled in Singapore). The arbitral law should not be confused with the governing law of your contract which is usually expressed as a separate clause of your agreement. The governing law of the contract is the law of the country that will determine how the terms of your contract are construed and interpreted. It will also determine what other statutes or national laws will affect the legal relations between the parties and their respective rights and obligations.

In contrast, the arbitral law only determines what country’s procedural law applies to your arbitration. This has to do with things like how arbitral awards are enforced or how legal effect is given to an arbitral tribunal’s decisions. It is not unusual for the arbitral law and governing law of the contract to be different in an arbitration. Arbitration comes with a high degree of both procedural flexibility and certainty which makes it a popular choice for a lot of companies. If your company engages in high-value transactions or projects with companies located in different jurisdictions, it is worth giving some serious consideration to ensuring your contracts contain an arbitration clause going forward.

Should you require any assistance in drafting an arbitration clause, or being legally represented in an arbitration, please feel free to contact one of our commercial dispute lawyers.

To me, I simplified it down to one single fact : VALUE FOR MONEY.
Though value for money differs for different market segment, that is why it is important to understand one’s market.
For the majority, online wins on convenience and price, saving the time to travel to shop, able to buy at one’s convenience on the mobile device, plus the chance to search for the cheapest.

Offline, on the other hand, wins on service and quality. It must be a place where a person look forward to going as part of their favorite past time. On this Ito Yokado Chengdu is an all time winner. In fact, it has been winning in chengdu over the last 20 years. As a merchant, it is important to go for both, also why not. But if you are in the food business, offline is the key as taste and building a loyal client base is the key factor.

veriHUB is fortunate to be able to participate in Ito Yokado's business and culture. We have been invited to setup Nanyang food booth in 5 of the 9 ito Yokado supermarket in Chengdu : 高新，双楠，天赋（食品馆），春熙，绿地. We showcase all our merchants' products made into hot deli ranging from soup in a bottles to laksa, nasi lemak, curry, chili crab, etc.
Why offline for veriHUB? Because it is VALUE FOR MONEY of course.
​
Article contributed by : Jason Lim, CEO of veriTAG Pte Ltd.

​In my earlier posts, I explained and highlighted the current shortage of repair and maintenance services. Total vehicle population has increased by more than 30% since 2011 but the service and repair support network has not kept pace, and this is putting a lot of strain on customer service personnel and PR staff. Of course, the technicians are also under tremendous pressure to deliver both in terms of the service quality as well as timeliness.

Automotive players in Thailand are keenly aware of this imbalance between demand and supply, and are actively taking measures to address this issue. The most significant stakeholder in this must be the OEMs themselves. They have to get the customer satisfaction part right in order to enhance their brands in this cut-throat market. In the car business, we know that the sales department sells the first car but it is the service department that sells the next.

OEMs face challenges in the effort to expand the after-sales network, some being external factors not within their control but nonetheless they have to overcome to be successful in their endeavors. Once of them is the shortage of qualified technicians, especially electricians. Thailand’s schools do not produce enough technical graduates that can quickly become productive automotive technicians. The percentage of students in technical courses are far less than those in the social sciences and business schools. Every year Thailand also produces a lot of lawyers but just not enough technician and engineers.

As cars become more complex, the industry needs technicians who can diagnose and repair a mal-functioning hill-assist, keyless start, or active cruise control, just to name a few examples. Every new model across all brands introduced comes with more sensors and electrical parts, so for older mechanics they have to be trained and retrained, and younger ones have to be equipped with the necessary skills in order to hit the ground running from day 1.

Some OEMs are also challenged by head office cost-cutting policies so they have to raise the dealer network technical capabilities while at the same time maneuvering round the lower budgets, all with very specific and tight deadlines. Imagine a combination of tight deadlines and tight budgets, not hard to see the amount of pressure here.

To get round the budget cuts, some OEMs work with third party service providers like TTi and MSXi so that these outsourcing do not appear in the headcounts. However, this adds to the layers of work as the OEMs now also have to manage the relationship with and the work of these third party service providers. Usually, OEM suppliers get included in some of the technical problem solving as the repair issues usually involve them.

I will talk more about the difficulties and challenges facing the OEMs when it comes to repair and maintenance service network expansion for the OEMs in a later post, and why I foresee independents as the fastest and most practical short term solution to fill the gap in the current mismatch between car repair and maintenance services demand and supply.

Last week, while having my lunch break visiting the trade expo Digital Thailand 2018, I received a telephone call from Shanghai. Someone read one of my articles on the recent development of the Thai vehicle after-sales service and wanted to know more to create a market study for a client. I was amazed by this. It is the power of today’s digital technology that allows someone like me to build an audience and quickly reach them, in the hope of positively contributing to the industry’s growth and to make a mark by sharing the information and knowledge I have.


I felt that the focus of the questions asked was on the imminent changes, or signs of change, of the way Thai vehicle service centers are set up and run. For this benefit, let me name a few which I have observed.

First, modern day car mechanics spend lesser time on the bolts, nuts and screws on the car, and more time on the various electronic devices. This slowly debunks the stereotype of a sweaty, oil-stained car mechanic in overalls, replaced by a clean, neat, customer-facing car mechanic with an electronic device in hand working on the car. It is not uncommon now for a car mechanic to spend almost half of their productive hours (that is, billable hours), working on a digital tool, doing software upgrades, scanning for trouble codes, linking up to OEM service database in search of solutions, even looking up Youtube for answers.

Second, with OBD2 dongles becoming easily accessible and purchased (you can order a USD50 dongle online that works very well), more and more customers, especially the lady drivers, will come into the workshop equipped with knowledge and information, and ask very specific technical questions, like I have a check engine light on and my OBD says intake air issue, could be clocked up throttle valve, so these car drivers cannot be fooled as easily as before. Thus, the trend of the future is more informed customers.

Third, the service centers will know more and more about you. By 2020, many Mercedes Benz cars will have internet-enabled electronic computer units (ECUs) that link to the customer assistance centers in the respective countries. From the ECUs, the customer assistance centers can advise the car owners of maintenance service schedules, diagnose car problems remotely through this access to the ECU, store historical data over cloud, and perform a lot more functions.


Fourth, independent vehicle workshops have to continuously upgrade their skills to handle hybrids and electric vehicles. This requires a change in attitude of the workshop operators and a willingness to invest in the business for the long run. The technological advancements are coming fast and furious and the need for skills development and upgrade cannot be over-emphasized. On top of that, the workshops also have to be adequately equipped to handle the electric cars and hybrids, and presently most car workshops in Thailand are not ready.

Fifth, we shall witness the growing power of the component suppliers, where more and more of them will either go it alone or partner with service center operators to establish a much wider service network, and reduce their reliance on the car manufacturers. You can see that most of the car components come from a shared technoloy and supply base. This trend is not slowing down, and is increasingly so, and what you have under the hood of the car, in the cabin, on the dashboard, they are all supplied by third party suppliers. Of course, these component makers also supply to other brands as well, so there is a lot of shared components among brands. Taking advantage of this, component makers are increasingly becoming more vocal about their expertise over the car makers, and are setting up their own workshops focusing on their products. Some examples are turbo charger repairs, service and replacement, air con units, ABS units, transmission repairs and rebuilts, sensor replacements, and soon electric car batteries.

It is my view that the vehicle after-market services will soon undergo tremendous disruption, and this offers a great opportunity for new players to come in with the new game plan and new way of serving customers.
​