Vietnam’s electric vehicle (EV) maker VinFast yesterday said it had shipped its first batch of 999 cars to the US, capping a five-year bid to develop an auto production hub in the Southeast Asian country for markets in North America and Europe.
The first cars are expected to reach customers by the end of next month, the company said.
VinFast chief executive officer Le Thi Thu Thuy said some of the VF 8 electric SUV models that were to be shipped yesterday would be sent to US auto subscription service Autonomy, but the majority would go to retail buyers who had ordered the car.
Photo: REUTERS
Thuy said VinFast expected to be able to ship a second batch of cars to the US, its first export market, in January.
VinFast is in the process of building an electric vehicle plant in North Carolina that is awaiting final regulatory approval by local officials.
The company expects to start production at the North Carolina factory from July 2024, and electric vehicles built there would qualify for incentives under the terms of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by US President Joe Biden, Thuy said.
The bill, as currently written, requires automakers to have 50 percent of critical minerals used in EV batteries come from North America or US allies by 2024, rising to 80 percent by the end of 2026.
Major automakers have said those targets are unrealistic and it was not immediately clear how VinFast would meet the sourcing requirements.
“The IRA came as a surprise to all of us, but it doesn’t really impact our strategy in the US,” Thuy said.
“As soon as we start manufacturing cars in the US, our customers will be eligible [for] the tax incentive,” he said.
VinFast last week said that Autonomy had ordered 2,500 electric vehicles, its largest corporate order to date.
The company said it has almost 65,000 orders globally and expects to sell 750,000 EVs annually by 2026.
The North Carolina factory project is running months behind schedule, based on the company’s initial targets, and the first shipment of EVs built by VinFast was short of the initial goal to deliver 5,000 cars built at its factory in Haiphong, Vietnam, by next month.
VinFast officials said the number 999 for the vehicles shipped in the first batch had been chosen because it is considered a lucky number in Vietnam.
“There is no luckier number than 999,” Thuy said. The transport ship used to send the first shipment of VinFast EVs had capacity to carry up to 2,000 vehicles, officials said.
Shares in VinFast’s listed parent company, Vingroup, which also has property and resort development businesses, were up 5.41 percent yesterday morning.
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