Vietnam's VinFast Seeks To Enter U.S. EV Car Market

Having conquered most industries at home, optimistic chiefs at conglomerate Vingroup are setting their sights much higher as they ramp up plans to sell the first-ever Vietnamese car in the mighty US market, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Photo Insert: VinFast already has electric vehicles (EVs) on the streets of Hanoi.

The pivot is a bold move by chairman Pham Nhat Vuong -- Vietnam's richest man -- who started out selling dried noodles in the former Soviet Union before amassing his $5 billion fortune in a range of sectors including real estate, tourism, and education.

His firm's auto unit VinFast already has electric vehicles (EVs) on the streets of Hanoi, though the attraction of the lucrative United States market is too good to ignore. However, the firm admits that competing in the crowded and difficult US market, which is dominated by Tesla, will be a huge but worthwhile task.

"If we can make it there, we can make it anywhere," CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy told AFP from the factory site where the finishing touches were being made to the VF8, a mid-size SUV with a sleek design by Italy's Pininfarina, which worked with Ferrari for decades.

But, she added, "we want to show people who might not have the correct understanding of Vietnam that Vietnam today is quite different to Vietnam during the war, or even to Vietnam 10 years ago."

While the aim of getting Americans driving its cars by Christmas may seem a huge ask, Vingroup -- Vietnam's biggest private firm -- has a track record of delivering.

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