VinFast’s India factory to open ahead of schedule: founder

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With only 9,689 units sold, Vietnamese electric vehicle major VinFast didn’t meet sales expectations in the first quarter of this year, as the number is far below the firm’s 100,000 unit goal. Shares of VinFast initially surged by 700% following the company’s August market debut in the US, but they have since experienced a dramatic 90% downturn.

Despite these setbacks, VinFast’s founder Pham Nhat Vuong remains optimistic about the future of EVs.

“The growth of electric vehicles will be inevitable,” he told Bloomberg.

With this, VinFast plans to open its US$500 million India factory in the first half of the next year, six months earlier than planned. In January this year, VinFast announced an agreement with the Indian state of Tamil Nadu for a US$2 billion investment into the country.

The company will also start building a factory in Indonesia within the next two months.

Both factories aim to manufacture 50,000 cars annually at first, but this could go up to 300,000, depending on demand.

Meanwhile, Vuong said VinFast had been weighing investor concerns about the cost of their US plant in the state of North Carolina, which began construction in July last year and is set to start producing EVs in 2025.

However, the founder said there are currently no plans to scale the factory down.

VinFast’s net debt currently stands at almost US$2.9 billion, according to the report, with the EV maker projected to spend US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion this year.

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