Thailand is fast becoming the automotive manufacturing hub for our region. Thanks to wild incentives and good cooperation from the government, car companies have plenty of justification to pick Thailand as a place to set up shop and make their vehicles there. Manufacturing chassis and body stamping is one of the larger steps after assembly, but even more pertinent to independent manufacturing is the production of mechanical components.
Today sees the start of production at Mazda’s Powertrain Manufacturing plant in Chonburi, Thailand. The plant will be manufacturing Mazda’s SKY-ACTIV transmissions, which is effectively latest generation powertrain tech from Mazda. Engineers were sent to Mazda’s plant in Hiroshima in order to observe and understand the kind of details and requirements for meeting Japanese quality standards.
The production capacity of Mazda’s transmission plant is expected to be about 400,000 units a year, which when combined with Mazda’s plant in Japan will bring production total up to 1,540,000 units annually. The transmissions will be used in the assembly of the Mazda 2, Mazda 3, and Mazda CX-5.
