Costel, a small and medium-sized electric vehicle charger manufacturer, will export charging products to Thailand. The company signed a long-term contract with a 10-year guarantee. Although it is still an early market, it marks the first time that a domestic charger manufacturer will be supplying to Southeast Asia, where Chinese products are the mainstream.
Costel announced on the 20th that it has signed a long-term supply contract with 'UAC Global PCL', an energy company that specializes in petrochemical and power generation in Thailand, for the construction and operation of charger distributors and charging stations for electric vehicles.
The contract included the minimum order (MOQ) over the next 10 years. Exports worth between 40 billion won and 50 billion won are guaranteed over the course of 10 years. Domestic chargers have been supplied to the U.S. and Europe in the short and long term, but there have been no cases of exports to Southeast Asia.
UAC uses Costel chargers for full and fast charger supply and installation projects in Thailand and electric vehicle charging stations that are built and serviced under its own brand. The company plans to build and operate at least 50 charging stations in major Thai cities next year alone, meanwhile the government, private retailers, and construction companies participate in bidding for product supply. From there, the number of independent charging stations will be expanded nationwide according to the demand for electric vehicles.
Costel will supply all products from 3kW outlet chargers to slow (7kW), fast (50-100kW), and ultra-fast (150, 200kW) chargers depending on local electric vehicle demand or charging infrastructure environment.
UAC, a locally listed company, is on the Thai Stock Exchange (SET) and specializes in energy such as petrochemicals and renewable energy power plants.
“We will expand from Thailand to neighboring markets such as Cambodia and Laos through contracts with UAC to strengthen our lineup of products optimized for Southeast Asia,” said Sung-hyun Ryu, CEO of Costel. "We will gradually target European and Latin American markets, starting with Thailand."
Established in 1986, Costel is a built-in home appliance company that entered the electric vehicle charger manufacturing industry in 2017. It has established partnerships with major domestic construction companies and charging businesses. Recently, Costel offers a variety of products, including streetlight chargers as well as special-purpose chargers for vehicles such as electric ships and buses.
By Staff Reporter Tae-jun Park (gaius@etnews.com)