Vietnamese Automaker's EV Shipment Is Big Competition For The US
In the electric vehicle industry, Tesla leads the pack with the highest market share in North America. Other automakers like Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors, and Hyundai are also competing in the segment. Besides them, newcomers like Lucid Motors, Polestar, and Rivian have taken a gamble in the EV industry. Since most countries and states are on course to embargo gasoline vehicles by 2040, the electric vehicle market is only expected to get bigger. It's inevitable that the competition will be stiff once the electric vehicle market consolidates over the next decade.
One of the lesser-known newcomers in the electric vehicle industry is VinFast: a Vietnamese start-up that was founded in 2017. It dispatched its first electric cars in Vietnam last year on Christmas day. What's more, American automaker, General Motors, signed a partnership deal with VinFast that would help it sell Chevrolet cars in Vietnam, according to Reuters. On top of that, VinFast has ambitions to expand outside Vietnam, and it will soon have its first electric vehicle in the U.S.
The Vietnamese Automaker has shipped its first electric vehicles to California
Bloomberg reports that VinFast is exporting 999 electric vehicles to the U.S. market. The electric vehicles were dispatched on Nov. 25, and they're expected to arrive in California right around Christmas. The specific model that is en route to the U.S. is the VinFast VF 8 — a 402 hp electric SUV with a battery range of 292 miles. This is similar to the VF 32 model that was unveiled last year. With a price tag of about $41,000, the VinFast VF 8 will be competing with the likes of the Volkwagen ID.4, Tesla Model Y, and Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Another model, the VinFast VF 9, is scheduled to be shipped out from Vietnam in January. But unlike the VF 8, the VF 9 model will include a bigger battery to increase the range up to 342 miles after a full charge. Just like the VF 32 model that was unveiled last year, the VF 9 is designed with all-wheel drive dual electric motors to optimize performance. All VinFast electric vehicles that will be sold in the U.S. will have a battery warranty of 125,000 miles or 10 years.
However, the VinFast VF 8 and VF 9 will not qualify for the new tax credit because they're not assembled in North America. Then again, VinFast is working to solve that problem since it's building an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in North Carolina. "As soon as we start manufacturing cars in the U.S., our customers will be eligible (for) the tax incentive," Le Thi Thu Thuy, the CEO of VinFast told Reuters. The Vietnamese company has also received about 65,000 pre-orders from the international market, and 17,000 bookings from the U.S.