Vietnam’s automaker VinFast announced on Tuesday its investment of US$2 billion in a factory in North Carolina. It will be building electric buses and sport-utility vehicles, along with EV batteries. Vingroup is Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate, said its investment in the first US factory complex will be US$4 billion.
It is known that the construction should begin this year as soon as the company gets the necessary permits, and is expected to finish by July 2024. The plant’s initial capacity will be 150,000 units per year, Vinfast said.
“With a manufacturing facility right in the U.S. market, VinFast can stabilize prices and shorten product delivery time, making our EVs more accessible to customers,” said Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, Vingroup vice-chair and VinFast Global CEO. VinFast has begun taking pre-orders globally for two electric SUVs, with a goal to begin delivering them in the fourth quarter.
Making EVs
VinFast said prices for its VF 8 sports SUV started from US$41,000 in the United States. (In Canada, the VF 8 starts at $51,250, and the full-size VF 9 at $69,750. —Ed.) By comparison, a Tesla SUV sells for around US$63,000. VinFast is targeting global electric vehicle sales of 42,000 this year. This will be North Carolina’s first car plant, and it is the largest economic development announcement in the state’s history, the governor’s office said in a statement.
VinFast, which became Vietnam’s first fully-fledged domestic car manufacturer in 2019, plans to transition to all-electric vehicle production from late 2022. Outside of North America, the company is looking for a plant in Germany, it said in January. VinFast is betting big on the U.S. market, where it hopes to compete with legacy automakers and startups with affordable electric SUVs and a battery leasing model.
Other electric vehicle startups like Rivian and Lucid have slashed their production targets this year due to supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus, which hit their share prices. Rivian said as of March 8, it had built 1,410 vehicles this year, and 2,425 since the start of production. It said that during the two weeks prior to March 8 it averaged a weekly production rate that was about twice the exit rate of the fourth quarter of 2021, but it expects supply-chain constraints to continue through 2022.
