Whereas acknowledging that VinFast faces stiff challenges as an unknown model in a extremely aggressive market, the automaker additionally has a observe report of beating the chances, Nguyen stated.
VinFast was based in 2017, began making gasoline automobiles in 2019 and delivered its first EV domestically in 2021 whereas asserting plans for 2 others, the midsize VF 8 crossover and three-row VF 9.
This yr, it started producing the smaller VF 6 and VF 7 in Vietnam after phasing out gasoline vehicles final yr.
“When individuals learn about us, know who we’re, learn about our product, I believe they are going to prefer it,” Nguyen stated throughout a media occasion in San Diego. “There shall be extra reservations and orders when the model consciousness is greater on this market, when individuals learn about us extra,” she stated.
For now, VinFast has 17,000 reservations for the VF 8 and VF 9 within the U.S. and Canada mixed, the corporate stated. Since December, VinFast has imported about 2,100 VF 8 automobiles on the market in California, the automaker’s first U.S. market, and 800 on the market in Canada. Most of them arrived in Might and haven’t been delivered.
Nguyen spends most of her time in Raleigh, N.C., the place she can be CEO of the corporate’s new manufacturing unit arm, VinFast Manufacturing US LLC, reasonably than on the firm’s North American headquarters in Los Angeles. She stated the model will broaden from its present 14 retail places in California to twenty-eight by the top of this yr and later department out to further U.S. markets.
Earlier within the month, VinFast introduced new financing from Vingroup founder Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam’s richest particular person. It additionally introduced a deliberate U.S. itemizing on the Nasdaq. The itemizing, by means of a merger with Black Spade Acquisition Co., is predicted to shut within the second half of the yr, the corporate stated.
The funding, together with as much as $2.5 billion from Vuong and Vingroup, is required for the automaker’s enlargement into North America and Europe because it bets on international markets for speedy development.
VinFast introduced this week it would additionally broaden in Asian markets.
