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EP 19: John Stech: Thailand accelerates while America brakes. How local culture impacts the approach to EVs and renewable energy
21 Plays4 days ago
Last week the Auto Ethnographer, John Jörn Stech, attended the 10th International Electric Vehicle Technology Conference & Exhibition combined with MobilityTech Asia 2025. The conference happened to be aligned in the same week that the American Houses of Congress passed legislation that effectively killed public funding and support for electric vehicles and renewable energy initiatives. The stark contrast between Thailand’s push on the accelerator and America’s stomp on the brake pedal are in focus today.
But the lens through which the topic will be dressed is not so much political as it is society and culture. The Thai and American cultures are extremely different. While Thailand is rooted deeply in Buddhism, and to a lesser degree Confucianism, which promotes a communal approach to addressing societal problems, American culture is individualistic, “everyone out for themselves”.
The Auto Ethnographer takes a look into Buddhism’s teachings and how they apply to renewable energy, electric vehicles, and the daunting task of combatting climate change. How do Thais employ those teachings to live a more harmonious communal life in Thai society?
Meanwhile, in the United States, individualism rules the day on electric vehicle adoption, the shift towards renewable energy, and on climate change, a topic that stirs debate on its very existence to this day.
John also discusses how past victories against pollution in the USA have rendered relatively clean air and water in the current day. This is in stark comparison to the 1960s and 1970s when environmental regulation was just getting started. With the air “looking” clean and carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming being invisible, it is easy to fall into the trap that there is no problem. Can’t see it? No problem then.
Contrast that to Thailand which continues to struggle with urban air and water quality. The problem is literally visible. So while Thais unite to conquer the pollution particulates, the PM 2.5 matter, they can simultaneously fight carbon dioxide through use of cleaner vehicles and energy production.
The iEVTech 2025 conference & exhibition was the impetus for this comparison. It was a show highlighted by two dozen speakers and dozens of international companies highlighting their EV, solar, energy storage, and related products. China, South Korea, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and other nations were represented in technology clusters. The United States was absent, a point not missed by the Auto Ethnographer and the cause for much contemplation of this topic for today’s podcast.
To learn more about The Auto Ethnographer, please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com
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Transcript
Introduction: Cultural Perspectives on Climate Change
00:00:00
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So if climate change were a restaurant, Thailand would be eating the group set menu, while America would be fighting about how spicy the wings should be.
Podcast Overview: The Auto Ethnographer
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Auto Ethnographer. I'm John Steck, your host on this journey. We travel the globe to bring you stories about culture and the global automotive industry.
Thailand's Electric Vehicle Progress
00:00:23
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Fasten your seatbelt and let's get started.
00:00:26
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Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Auto Ethnographer, where culture meets the auto industry. And in today's episode, there's more of a collision than there is and there is an intersection.
00:00:41
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This week, the topic is inspired by my participating in the International Electric Vehicle Technology Conference and exhibition in Bangkok, Thailand last week.
00:00:53
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It was an amazing conference, um a lot of speakers, also a lot of displays at the conference, as well as a large exhibition hall contained within the Queen Sirakit National Convention Center, which is an incredibly beautiful um architectural and modern conference center in the center of Bangkok.
Cultural Influences on Environmental Action
00:01:20
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It was an interesting week for me. And I'm going to talk today a little bit about why Thailand is zooming ahead in electric cars, as well as rooftop solar and other clean energy efforts while America seems to be stuck in a traffic jam of opinions.
00:01:43
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So for those who are on YouTube, you're lucky this week because I'm going to have a few visuals from the conference and from the exhibition. And for those on any of the other audio only platforms, ah feel free, of course, to check it out on YouTube for a few of the visuals from last week.
00:02:01
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While I was at the conference last week and listening to a lot of presentations on Thailand moving forward and making investment from both the public and the private sector, it happened to be the same week that under duress,
00:02:16
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the United States Congress, both houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, um duress from President Donald Trump, passed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
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This effectively killed federal investment and so subsidy support for renewable energy, for electric vehicles, um and related technology in favor of investing further and more into fossil fuels.
00:02:42
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These two countries are headed in very different directions. one with a foot on the accelerator and the other country with a foot now firmly planted on the brake pedal.
Role of Buddhism and Confucianism in Thai Society
00:02:55
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Let's figure out what's behind that. And because this podcast is about culture and the auto industry, I'm not gonna look so much at politics, I'm gonna look about culture and how the underlying cultures between the two countries are driving these two different directions.
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Thailand has a much more collectivist culture, which frames things like climate action, into a more communal calling. It's like plugging your entire neighborhood into hope, into doing something better and doing something different.
00:03:30
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There are certainly individualists in Thailand as well. ah The entire nation is not 100% homogeneous in its communal calling or in its ah yeah neighborhood action.
00:03:45
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However, Based on a long history, the social harmony in the country is rooted quite heavily in the Buddhist and even Confucian values that have been passed down through the the decades and the centuries in the culture here.
00:04:00
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Things like saving face and community respect really drive public behavior. I want to dig in a little bit more on the culture here in Thailand.
00:04:13
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It's something that I have only scratched the surface. I continue to learn every day about people that are so friendly and so welcoming to me here in their country.
00:04:29
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I have to look, of course, at at Buddhism as a core element of the culture and and the behavior. Buddhism is different region by region, culture by culture in Asia.
00:04:44
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And in Thailand, you have about 90% of Thais who practice Theravada Buddhism. it's a type of buddhism that emphasizes the personal virtue as well as social harmony and that's achieved by a focus on karma and merit making in other words if you do good deeds they benefit not only you the the doer of the good deed
00:05:17
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but also it ripples outward into society. So things like giving alms, helping others, temple donations are a way that help the community as well as the individual who is who is making those donations.
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Then there's the sangha, which is the monastic community. So monks are central figures in Thai society. You see special places special seats for them on public trains.
00:05:51
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You see them having also special reverence by the citizens in the streets. It's really integrated into the society here.
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Now, monks being such a strong central figure within society, they often help to guide the the moral and the societal behavior and community decisions.
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So temples are a bastion for education as well as for charity, but they go further than that into a sense of societal cohesion.
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Among the elements, as I have learned, are the five precepts as well as an eightfold path for Buddhists to follow.
00:06:42
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These ethical guidelines, they promote non-harming truthfulness and really livelihoods like like pushing for the livelihood of of everybody.
00:06:54
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And what this does is it just somehow naturally fosters a peaceful coexistence between people because they're trying to look out for the benefit of all.
00:07:07
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There's a certain politeness that may be shocking to Westerners who are here, where you can step in front of people in a crowd. They're Rather than pushing and shoving, somebody here may make way for you unexpectedly.
00:07:25
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And that's just a very small um ah very small part of what you can observe here. It's something that's built into the Thai psyche to try to make life for other people easier and not to somehow inconvenience other people.
00:07:45
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In other cultures, we don't seem to care.
00:07:51
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There's a interdependence also, a feeling of interdependence. It's a ah Buddhist view that all things arise with a dependence
Collectivism vs. Individualism in Climate Action
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on each other. And this encourages Thais to see themselves as part of a larger whole, right? It's not the isolated individual as it is in other cultures, even if those cultures are religious.
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It's different in Buddhism with regards to the community and with taking care of the community. Now I mentioned briefly Confucianism. Confucianism clearly is Chinese. Confucianism was brought here to Thailand by hundreds of years of Chinese immigrants.
00:08:42
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who have resettled into Thailand and there's a very strong Thai-Chinese community in the country. Now, with that being a ah ah relatively large ethnic group in the country, um there are Confucian values that have permeated Thai society through these centuries of Chinese migration into the country.
00:09:05
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things like respect for elders and family hierarchy, it it somehow reinforces a social stability, which you somehow feel may have been lost in other cultures.
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So for example, in the future, I will be doing a podcast on ageism. And I'll be comparing how ageism has an impact in the West versus how that may or may not be occurring in Eastern countries.
00:09:37
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The other Confucian element that plays a role is ritual and harmony. So there are certain proper conducts that you have and harmonious relationships that are driven by that proper conduct.
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and And that fits in well and aligns well with what I just described as a ah tie form of politeness and the social grace that you don't necessarily find in many western countries.
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Lastly, there's a collective duty that teaches individuals that they should act in a way that benefits their family,
00:10:21
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it benefits their community, and it affects the state, the overall state, the country. And this harmonizes very closely with Buddhist ideas of merit and selflessness, which again, all of that fuses together to bring that communal element into the Thai culture.
00:10:41
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Again, this has been something that I've been learning a lot about and continue to learn about. It helps me to really appreciate why people do what they do here and what drives them on an individual basis.
00:10:57
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You have the temple, ultimately, you have the school and you have the home, all of them working in harmony to instill these values into people from a very young age onwards.
00:11:13
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You have community-based local organizations which apply these principles, these Buddhist principles, and they bring compassion, a sense of compassion and and some transparency to public service.
00:11:29
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ah Granted, like everywhere, there are issues in the transparency of of government. But there is a an element of of moving forward and of trying to do the best for society embedded deeply deeply in those approaches.
00:11:49
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So for me, as a observer, a foreign observer, who at this time is living in Thailand, it's been a learning process and it is a sharp delineation from the mindset and the culture that I have primarily grown up in, which is in the United States, where individualism is what rules the day.
00:12:15
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That individualism, of course, has derived from the very beginnings of the country, driving westward towards the West Coast, you expansionism and making it on your own, you know making something for yourself.
00:12:34
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It's that American dream of being a nobody and working your way up in life to becoming a somebody. And all of this primarily is based on the individual, not necessarily on the community around them.
00:12:50
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And those roots stand in stark contrast to each other when you really look into the two cultures and and how they then approach things that ail society as a whole and whether they coalesce around a solution or whether they do not.
00:13:12
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Local environmental efforts are often tied to royal projects. We do have a king and a queen who are reigning here in Thailand.
00:13:23
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So they often have ah community projects that are important driving the country forward. There's also a lot of leadership that comes from the temples, from the from the Buddhist sector in the in the country, which still heavily influences society across the board.
00:13:42
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So the collective action comes through village networks and those can often be started from federal either mandates or federal actions that are trying to make improvements to the country.
00:13:59
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In real terms, As you know, I'm in the auto industry for 30 years, and when I walk down the street, that's what I see.
Challenges in US Climate Change Efforts
00:14:07
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That's that's what I look at. And so when I walk down the street, what I see are electric scooters, shared electric vehicle fleets, taxi fleets, for example, electric powered three-wheel tuk-tuks, which are culturally woven right into the fabric of Thai culture.
00:14:27
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It isn't futurism. It's happening right now as you walk along the street. So when I walk along Sukhumvit Road, which is one of the main avenues going down the center of the city, I can peruse the cars and the various vehicles that are stuck in the unfortunately endless traffic jam there.
00:14:47
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You can find humble electric scooters quietly weaving their way through the ah traffic jam. You have the electric rideshare tuk-tuks from a company called MoveMe, which has around 700 such tuk-tuks driving on pre-described routes throughout the city that you can access with a quite convenient handheld app.
00:15:10
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And then you have a variety of electric vehicles from China. You have the Netta brand, Aura, BYD, Avatar, and so many more. And then, of course, you also have a presence of the Europeans at the high end of the market. For example, you have brightly yellow painted Lotus Electres and Porsche Taycans.
00:15:33
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Meanwhile, America wrestles with climate action on a different level. It seems to come across as a personal sacrifice, which nobody wants to do for their neighbor.
00:15:48
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Freedom feels threatened by mandates somehow for parts of American society, certainly not everybody, even if the promise is cleaner air and cleaner water for all.
00:16:01
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And this is deeply rooted in the sense of American individualism, something which prioritizes the personal freedoms and proper property rights and just you doing you and not necessarily worrying about what anybody else is doing and just doing what you feel in your sense of freedom.
00:16:26
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Environmentalism, unfortunately, even though it's a positive thing to improve and clean the environment, is it's often politicized by tapping into this sense of individualism.
00:16:40
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It's framed as government overreach, even though legislation back in the 1960s and 70s resulted in actually quite clean water and and quite clean air, which we breathe today in the United States if you if you visit.
00:16:55
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There were incredible images from the 1960s and 1970s of literally rivers burning with fire in Ohio ah based on the pollution.
00:17:06
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There were chemical waste dumps. Back in the 1980s, you had the topic of acid rain, which was very prevalent in conversation. When was the last time you heard about acid rain in the news?
00:17:21
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You don't because regulation and forced improved technologies have essentially remedied the possibility of acid rain and in today's United States.
00:17:37
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And because this all happened 50 and 60 years ago, people simply don't remember. They don't remember the negative, which was turned into a positive into appreciating what they have today in the sense of clean water, clean air, clean soil.
00:17:55
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Now, the the fragmented response and in the US can also often be attributed very much to different ideological divisions, whether you're on the left or on the right side of the political spectrum.
00:18:09
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And also there's a general distrust in centralized solutions. Not everybody trusts the government to do what's right. I think all of us probably at one point or other felt that the government was not necessarily trustworthy.
00:18:24
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So instead in the US, it's more a focus on the consumer choice. yeah Does the consumer wanna drive the electric car?
00:18:36
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versus oil or versus coal loyalty with regards to energy. It's the consumer. And now with last week's decision in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, you firmly the decision from a public standpoint, from a government standpoint, is to shift the attention back to fossil fuels.
Cultural Identity and EV Adoption
00:18:58
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In Bangkok, pollution is visual. You have hazy skies, you have smelly canals, and you have an air quality app that you receive near daily warning notifications.
00:19:14
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It's just something that you can't unsee. You can't avoid it. It's something that you feel there has to be a solution. This is very much how Los Angeles and cities like in Colorado suffered from smog in the 1970s and 1980s.
00:19:33
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You saw it. So ties by electric vehicles because they want to see change. They know there's an issue.
00:19:44
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They can see it. They can feel it when they breathe walking along the street. Cleaner air is progress made visible.
00:19:56
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But cleaning the air is, of course, not only limited to pollution particles, but it extends to carbon dioxide as well. Something which which isn't visible, but they understand that it's there.
00:20:11
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As I mentioned, America fought its air pollution battle back in the 1970s and 1980s. You had choking smog and pollution in some of the United States cities, notably California.
00:20:25
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Hence, California having their California Air Resources Board, an organization set up specifically to fight against smog and other pollution.
00:20:37
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Technology, the catalytic converter, played a key role in helping to clear the air of many of these harmful substances and and particles. But carbon dioxide is invisible.
00:20:52
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and it's not prevented by a a catalytic converter. Climate skepticism thrives when you can't see the damage immediately, but it's something that's out there in the future that isn't guaranteed, likely to happen, but hard to visualize in today's world.
00:21:13
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So as a result, I think even modern EVs are dismissed if they challenge the cultural identity of the land of the car, right?
00:21:24
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The United States, which of course developed very much on independence derived from the car, something that I talked about in the last podcast two weeks ago.
00:21:36
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So as quickly as the American White House was turned into a Tesla dealer just a few months ago, Just a week ago, the house's tenant claimed nobody wants to buy those things anyway.
00:21:50
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So there's clearly an influence on the individual also from the political ideology. Again, you walk around in Bangkok or other parts of Thailand and you think EVs in Thailand?
00:22:08
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They're everywhere. The urban streets are dotted with the sleek Chinese BYD and Great Wall motor compact EVs with delivery vans gliding silently past temples.
00:22:23
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Taxis are charging curbside with the green light blinking out a sense of optimism. Want an electric taxi? Pull out your phone, open up your Bolt rideshare app,
00:22:36
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and literally select an electric vehicle. Government incentives work to stimulate what you have as a already present sense of communal culture here in Thailand.
00:22:52
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So just like in the United States, up until last week, Thailand has set of regulations and let's call it a directive to reach 30% sales or sales mix of electric vehicles among all vehicle sales by the year 2030. So it's called 30 and 30.
00:23:14
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thirty and thirty Now, Chinese automakers have invested, they've they've picked up that call and they've built several factories here already.
00:23:25
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I think there are either five or six Chinese factories churning out electric vehicles in Thailand as as I speak right now. And crucially, EVs are fashionable.
00:23:37
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They're not controversial. Not in the same sense that you might feel that over in the United States. It's something that's more accepted. It's something cool, something modern, something new, something high tech.
00:23:52
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In the US, meanwhile, it's more complicated. Tesla's once sprinted ahead, but their luster is fading in the American culture war, even as competitors nibble away at Tesla's market share.
00:24:09
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Elsewhere, electric pickup trucks, they sparked some existential dread for automakers because pickup truck driving consumers in the United States just haven't been convinced, neither by the ability to carry heavy loads nor by the ability to tow heavy heavy trailers.
00:24:30
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So the American public, again, looking very much from the consumer perspective, They worry more about EVs possibly canceling the time-honored tailgate cultures or even, you know, threatening their garage rituals, hanging out with your family and tinkering with the family hot rod, something that you probably don't do with an electric vehicle since it's primarily driven by electronics, not by things that you can wrench.
00:25:04
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Looking more broadly as you examine a little bit about what's happening in Thailand and the way that the consumer and the society is accepting you cleaner alternatives, you have a lot of growth in rooftop solar.
00:25:26
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You even see temples beaming with brand new solar panels. you know Neighborhoods, they seem to be competing to outgreen one another.
00:25:37
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you know Even as, frankly, electricity in this country is still generated about two-thirds by natural gas. You know but those alternatives, the clean energy alternatives are growing. And that was the entire sense of the conference and the exhibition last week, where dozens upon dozens of suppliers and vendors were showing their wares and their technology to develop towards that cleaner future.
00:26:05
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Meanwhile, in the US, energy debates are unfortunately often driven by the party line, as well as that underlying sense of individualism. you know During his campaign, Trump had his trademark drill baby drill statement, as well as a promise to expand investment into coal mines.
00:26:27
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you know Something that ultimately is now with the adoption of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill is pulling the solar industry in major zigzags between innovation and opposition.
00:26:42
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It certainly puts that entire industry into question now. The EV rollout in Thailand feels a bit more choreographed. It's like synchronized electric scooters slicing through Bangkok traffic.
00:26:56
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There's a certain rhythm and a pattern to it. At last week's IEV tech conference, the secretary general of Thailand's board of investment laid out a clear path of investment and a focus for a greener, more sustainable energy future.
00:27:15
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presentation after presentation outlined strategies for shifting to solar and other sustainable energy sources. There was even a plan illustrated to the audience for implementing 100,000 EV charging stations for a country that's roughly 20% larger in area than California, but has significantly higher population density, about 72 million people versus California's almost 40 million people.
00:27:48
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And while progress can seem to come and fits and starts in Thailand, There is a unified plan and something that will move forward in that irregular forward moving way.
00:28:03
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Rather than using the term choreographed in the US, I would think of a different metaphor. America's approach is probably better described if you visualize jazz musicians.
00:28:16
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All of them are soloing. All of them are jostling for stage time and the stage melts.
00:28:25
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The fossil fuel lobby certainly scored a victory last week in the form of the Big Beautiful Bill, which shifts America into a reverse gear on future technology developments in the clean energy space.
00:28:40
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Without a national mandate or a national strategy, the sustainable energy sector and the EV sector, which is part and parcel of the larger automotive industry, aside from some startup companies as well, will lack a clear direction for development.
00:29:01
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As I mentioned, in Thailand, people act because the problem is visible. You can see it. EVs glide through the smoggy streets like hope on wheels.
00:29:18
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In America, the damage is unseen. Carbon dioxide's silent grip makes climate change feel like someone else's fiction. You can't see it, so it's difficult to convince people that it's there and then it does that it does any kind of lasting damage.
00:29:36
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And that lack of visible immediacy allows American politicians to push solutions off to our children's future. this hones right back in on that sense of individualism.
00:29:51
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Why should I sacrifice? I think someone else should sacrifice if they want. I don't want to sacrifice, but I'll rely on someone else to make that sacrifice for me instead.
00:30:04
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And that sense of individualism creates this greater challenge in implementing wider spread, let's say, clean energy solutions, electric vehicle solutions, and greater efforts towards the fight against climate change and global warming.
International Perspectives on Clean Energy
00:30:30
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So culture overall shapes vision. and vision shapes action. A nation rooted in communal action will pull together in one direction.
00:30:47
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A nation rooted in individualism will be want to pick a direction. So if climate change were a restaurant, Thailand would be eating the group set menu.
00:31:01
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while America would be fighting about how spicy the wings should be. So what does this mean for global warming and addressing this greater societal problem?
00:31:14
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Again, culture drives cooperation. In Thailand, it's about communal survival. In America, it's about personal sovereignty, which isn't great because the atmosphere doesn't care if you voted red or blue.
00:31:36
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It made a very big impression to walk around the exhibition hall at the Mobility Tech and International Electric Vehicle Technology exhibition last week.
00:31:51
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It was also rolled together with a clean water exhibition as well as a clean energy exhibition. There was a sense of energy and optimism in the room.
00:32:05
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The room itself was in clusters by country, by nationality. So you had Thai cluster area where all Thai technology companies, local companies were featured.
00:32:19
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You had UK section, a Germany section, France, you had Finland and a few others. China took up a significant part of the floor space at the conference, again, with a combination of electric vehicle charging stations, with battery electric home storage systems, as well as electric vehicles and solar.
00:32:47
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There were a lot of solutions on display and a lot of companies pitching their products to local industry leaders, to local government leaders who are shopping for technologies that could be implemented in Thailand for making this strategic move in energy change and fight against climate change in the future.
00:33:15
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Notably missing were any American companies, unfortunately. And it was this lack of American companies that gave birth to this podcast this week.
00:33:32
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It gave me pause to think about all of these companies from primarily countries where there is a more united approach towards the climate, towards clean air, towards cleaner driving.
00:33:53
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and a lack of presence from another country, the United States, which is now moving in a very different direction.
00:34:02
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This caused me to really reflect on how culture drives these attitudes, how culture drives the feeling of helping each other, the feeling of helping the community.
00:34:18
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And I spent a lot of time this weekend contemplating how those cultural backgrounds actually influence real actions as societies move forward.
00:34:35
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I want to thank you, the listeners, for joining in again this week. Next week, I will resume back with having a guest on the show. It should be a very interesting show to talk about ah new technology based on AI and the cultural background that led that young entrepreneur to bringing it to reality.
00:35:01
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Until next week, keep on driving.
00:35:07
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's journey. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Auto Ethnographer and leave us a rating or comment. For more information, visit our website at auto-ethnographer.com.
00:35:19
Speaker
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