Antonina Joson
Antonina Joson covers how Southeast Asia’s car markets and fleet decisions respond to new technologies, environmental pressures, and policy shifts. She writes for AfMA, focusing on the automobile sector and its implications for fleets and mobility services. She works as a communications officer, bringing a background in writing, digital marketing, and content creation to the masthead.
Car market shifts in Southeast Asia
Much of Antonina’s reporting concentrates on month‑to‑month changes in car sales across key Southeast Asian markets.
She tracks declines in Indonesia’s car sales, including a 3.9 per cent drop in October and a later 18 per cent fall, treating the figures as signals for manufacturers, dealers, and fleet operators. She follows Thailand’s market through periods of sales and manufacturing slumps, detailing how downturns at the end of 2024 affect production and demand. Her coverage of Singapore shows how electric vehicles come to dominate new car registrations, giving fleet managers a clear view of shifting preferences in a mature, policy‑driven market. Across these pieces she keeps a tight focus on sales data, segment performance, and the relationship between national policy and corporate strategy.
She also reports on Indonesia’s call for Toyota to move production out of Thailand, using cross‑border manufacturing decisions to illustrate how regional politics and industrial policy shape supply for the wider car market. Her tone stays factual and concise, with each article structured around clear numbers, defined timeframes, and the practical consequences for the wider fleet sector.
Electric vehicles and environmental pressures
Antonina’s work on electric vehicles links technology adoption with air quality, energy policy, and investor interest.
In Indonesia she notes that battery‑electric vehicle sales remain strong even as overall car sales fall, pointing to a divergence between traditional segments and emerging EV demand. Her reporting on Singapore’s new car registrations highlights how EVs reach a point where they dominate the market, showing what happens when incentives and infrastructure align. In Vietnam she asks whether EVs can help solve Hanoi’s air pollution problem, framing electrification as both a public health measure and a transport policy choice.
She follows XPENG’s planned entry into Indonesia, connecting a global EV brand’s expansion with local regulation and consumer readiness. Across these stories she presents EVs less as lifestyle products and more as strategic assets for governments, manufacturers, and fleets.
The coverage shows how environmental goals, industrial ambitions, and market realities intersect, giving a clear picture of where electrification is advancing and where it meets resistance.
Safety campaigns and regulatory alerts
Automotive safety is another recurring thread in Antonina’s reporting. Her piece on defective airbags in Thailand covers a nationwide warning and the fact that 500,000 vehicles remain unchecked, turning a technical recall into a public‑interest story. She explains how government agencies respond, how many vehicles are affected, and what owners are urged to do, keeping the focus on practical steps rather than sensational detail. The article also reflects AfMA’s broader concern with fleet risk management, since unresolved safety campaigns can leave large corporate and government fleets exposed. By highlighting the scale of the issue and the gap between official notices and completed checks, she makes regulatory alerts directly relevant to fleet operators and mobility providers.
Mobility platforms, technology, and fleet culture
Beyond traditional car sales, Antonina covers the rise of new mobility platforms and the digital infrastructure around the auto market.
Her reporting on Vietnam’s Xanh SM plans to rival Grab in Southeast Asia looks at how a local player positions itself against a regional ride‑hailing giant, and what that competition means for urban transport and fleet utilisation. In technology coverage she reports on moves such as Carro’s acquisition of Australian online car market CarPlace, treating online marketplaces as part of the ecosystem that connects buyers, sellers, and fleet managers. She also writes book recommendation pieces for AfMA, selecting titles that speak to fleet management, leadership, and industry trends and presenting them as practical reading for professionals. Within AfMA she contributes to advertising and content planning for FleetDrive, reflecting an editorial role that bridges reporting, promotion, and audience engagement.
Her career background in customer support, marketing, advertising, translation, and financial technology adds a commercial and cross‑industry perspective to these pieces, which often sit at the junction of transport, technology, and business culture.
Across beats, Antonina’s coverage is defined by clear data, regional scope, and a consistent link back to fleet operations. She treats Southeast Asia’s automobile sector as a connected system of markets, policies, technologies, and everyday risks, and writes in a straightforward style that makes complex regional developments usable for industry readers.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aditya Nadkarni
Aditya Nadkarni turns new model launches and first drive reviews into clear, buyer-facing information, with a strong focus on detail and incremental updates. He is principal correspondent at CarWale, where he covers passenger vehicles with an emphasis on launch news, facelifts and road-test impressions for mainstream and premium cars. His core news work tracks new introductions and lifecycle updates, explaining what changes, when the car goes on sale, and how each variant is configured. He writes “variants explained” pieces and structured first drive reviews that link driving impressions to a model’s place in the market and its recent update or launch. His reporting is factual, methodical and model-specific, avoiding broad commentary and treating even minor tweaks and new features as news. His bylines also appear at Mobility Outlook and CarTrade, with the same detail-first style.
Alexis Hooi
Alexis Hooi reports on how China’s partnerships in electric vehicles, green technology, tourism and agriculture reshape markets and communities, with a focus on Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific. He writes for China Daily, drawing on experience as a national news page editor, columnist and long-form reporter, and earlier work in other media and organizations. His beat covers Chinese EVs in Australia, green transition projects, innovation hubs, wine, geothermal energy and agricultural cooperation, treating each sector as a lens on China–Oceania economic ties and sustainable growth. He follows concrete outcomes like shifts in car choices, visitor numbers, exports and investment, and reports through project-focused stories and personality-driven features. He also covers culture and identity, diaspora roots, tourism flows, animal attractions and commentary on perception and language, grounding China–Australia relations in everyday experiences.
Aranya Mondal
Aranya Mondal is a business and technical writer who edits and writes analytical coverage of the global aluminium industry for AL Circle, with a through-line of connecting trade patterns and supply risks to aluminium competitiveness. She focuses on aluminium trade flows, bauxite diplomacy, tariffs, scrap imports and strategic materials adjacent to aluminium such as gallium. Her beat spans scrap, recycling and the shift from linear to circular aluminium markets, alumina and aluminium production trends, regional vulnerabilities and project developments, as well as automotive and mobility uses of aluminium including product launches like the Anytec A28-T boat. She works mainly on long-form explainers and recurring formats such as weekly sustainability recaps, using clear language, trade data and value-chain context to unpack production, policy and energy trends for an industry audience.
Ashley Gardiner
Ashley Gardiner focuses on turning automotive industry data and policy into clear public statements on electric vehicles, market performance and regulation through her communications work at the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. She shapes how the sector presents its position on sales trends, climate targets and the transition to cleaner vehicles, using industry figures and policy detail together. Her beat spans electric vehicle transition, climate policy and “balanced incentives” for EV uptake, as well as motorcycle and vehicle sales statistics that show momentum through record and near-record months. She also covers regulatory reviews, dealer and repairer frameworks, competition settings and road safety strategies, presenting FCAI submissions and responses in direct, policy-focused language. Her work extends to consumer safety and information initiatives, linking complex regulatory and market changes to practical outcomes for buyers and road users.