Toyota doesn’t sell hybrids in Cambodia, so why is Phnom Penh SEA’s Prius capital?
Hans · Nov 15, 2021 12:00 PM
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South East Asia is a region where Toyota dominates. Not only that, Toyota models are so ubiquitous in this part of the world that they define the region’s urban landscape.
Bangkok will not be complete without bright pink Toyota Corolla taxis, Hiace tourist vans, and of course, overloaded Toyota Hiluxes.
You can tell which South East Asian city is this just by the Toyota vehicles on the road
Jakarta has its Blue Bird Toyota Vios taxis (sold as the Toyota Limo), Manila has white Vios taxi fleets, Ho Chi Mih city is moved by the Toyota Innova, while Singapore’s SMRT has its purple Toyota Priuses. You would think that Singapore, being a developed city with low carbon aspirations, is the region’s capital for Toyota hybrids – not true.
The South East Asian city with the highest number of Toyota hybrids per capita is Phnom Penh, which is really odd because distributor Toyota (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. doesn’t even sell any hybrids there.
Toyota Prius is to Phnom Penh what Perodua Myvi is to KL
As with any young developing country, new Toyota vehicle sales in Cambodia are made up mostly of Toyota Hilux and Toyota Fortuner. In recent times smaller crossover-type SUVs like the Toyota Corolla Cross and Toyota Raize are also in demand.
But the Cambodian car market is quite unstructured and parallel imported reconditioned used cars outnumber cars sold via official channels.
Cambodia sells about 90,000 cars annually (pre-Covid-19, including parallel imported models). Out of those, over 15,000 units are parallel imported Toyota Prius(es). If you were to include reconditioned Toyota Camry Hybrids and Harrier Hybrids, the number goes up even higher.
If your Prius gets stolen, it's probably in Phnom Penh
Nearly every taxi in Phnom Penh is a Toyota Prius. Nobody promoted hybrids to Cambodians but somehow, the locals figured out that cheap, ‘low resale value’ hybrids are the best solution for their unique local needs.
If Norway is the poster-child of electric vehicle adoption, then Cambodia is Norway’s equivalent for hybrids – tiny countries adopting something radically different from their peers.
Yes, battery electric vehicles are the new frontier but unless you are a fanatical follower of Elon Musk, there’s no need to explain further why electric vehicles are a dead-end in countries like Cambodia.
But what do Cambodian drivers of Toyota hybrids know that Malaysians don’t understand? After all, the common opinion among Malaysians is that they are a bad buy because of poor resale value and battery replacement is expensive.
One thing’s for sure. Cambodian drivers’ love for hybrids has nothing to do with the environment. In fact, Cambodia doesn’t even enforce any regulations governing recycling of high voltage batteries.
Think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - psychology 101. For citizens of a country that earns an average of around RM 1,250 per month (about 2.5 times less than Malaysia), climate change and environmental preservation rank very low in their order of priorities. The need to put food on the table trumps everything else.
At the same time, Cambodian petrol costs around RM 4 per litre, for regular RON 92 petrol. However prices have been on the uptrend, hovering at around RM 4.38 per litre now on the back of increasing global crude oil prices.
In an environment where fuel prices are this high, the savings from a Toyota Prius, which consumes on average 40 percent less fuel (it does about 4.5-litre/100 km, real-world driving) than a similar size car, are amplified.
For Cambodians, hybrids are cheap to buy and maintain because there are plenty of used Toyota Priuses from Japan and USA (Cambodia does not have strict regulations on left-hand / right-hand drive cars). Battery replacement costs don’t bother them much because hybrid battery specialists are about as common there as smartphone repair shops.
Replacing / refurbishing battery packs is not difficult at all. It just requires a different set of skills, one that’s not in short supply in Cambodia, given the high number of hybrids (and business opportunities) on the road.
Most of these Toyota Prius taxis clock very high mileage daily and are driven almost non-stop.
The Taxi Rogue company for example, operates its fleet of second generation Toyota Priuses. Like many Toyota Prius taxis in Phnom Penh, these cars are more than 10 years old and won’t pass Japan’s very strict Shaken road worthiness inspection without expensive refurbishment (labour charges are high in Japan).
Many used Priuses arrive in Cambodia in terrible conditions. It's amazing how these supposedly written off hybrids can be put back on the road to cover hundreds of thousands of kms more, on roads Toyota never designed it to drive on.
But upon arriving in Cambodia, local technicians can put them on the road again (put aside Japan standards of road worthiness) for very little money, to be driven almost non-stop daily, alternating between night-shift and day-shift drivers.
CEO Aum Rithyrith told The Phnom Penh Post that he started the business with 12 Toyota Priuses in 2014, and each car have been making him USD 33 per day since day one.
US-spec Priuses unloaded from containers. Some still has US plates on it. This one says California.
The popularity of Toyota hybrids in Cambodia surprised Toyota, which is finding itself in a somewhat tricky situation. Officially, these cars were never meant for Cambodian driving conditions but to ignore this reality and not introduce measures to beef up Toyota hybrids’ durability on rough roads, hot and humid climate wouldn’t do the company’s brand image any favours.
Red brake calipers? What kind of life this Prius had with its previous owner?
Crucial learning points gained from many high mileage Priuses and Toyota's over 20 years of experience with batteries have been introduced into the Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid, which is developed with South East Asian driving conditions in mind.
Toyota don’t sell any hybrids in Cambodia because of high taxes. Murky regulations governing parallel imports and government authorities turning a blind eye on tax evasion by parallel importers mean that officially imported models will always be priced at a disadvantage. Even BMW and Audi had exited Cambodia in protest.
The way Toyota sees it, Cambodians should be driving the new Hilux. Local buyers prefer cheap, used hybrids.
This also means that the problem of unregulated disposal of discarded batteries remains unresolved, since Toyota is not involved in the supply chain in Cambodia.
To solve this, Toyota is proposing to the Cambodian government to reuse discarded Prius parts as electric tuk tuks. As of 2020, Toyota’s trading arm Toyota Tsusho Corp had supplied six electric tuk tuks made from recycled Prius components in Cambodia, for use by tourists in Angkor Wat.
Toyota Tsusho says many of the Prius’ parts can be used up to 1 million kilometres. So even though the rest of the Toyota hybrid car’s body is falling apart, its motors and electronic bits can still be repurposed into other low power applications like electric tuk tuks.
For more Malaysia-specific information on Toyota hybrid battery replacement / refurbishment cost, go here.
Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.
