Vietnam's Richest Person Bets Over USD10 Billion For VinFast To Break Into The Global EV Market

Vietnam's richest person, billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong , is betting over USD10 billion to make VinFast into a viable brand in the global electric vehicle market. But its journey so far has been bumpy, and there's skepticism about whether it can compete outside its home country. Still, VinFast's CEO, a former banker, is full of confidence. "Our mission is to make EVs accessible to everyone," says Le Thi Thu Thuy, 49.

VinFast has aggressive targets, including selling 1 million EVs worldwide within 6 years. (It took Tesla 17 years.) After investing almost USD10 billion to roll out several EV models, develop a charging infrastructure and build a fully automated factory in Vietnam, the company plans to invest a further USS1.8 billion in the next 3 years to get factories running in the U.S. by 2025, and Indonesia and India in 2026. Of that total, USD1.4 billion is going into the first phase of a North Carolina plant under construction. The goal is to take advantage of government subsidies and tax benefits in these locations and increase the group's annual production capacity to about 550,000 units by 2026 from 300,000, the current capacity of its sole factory in Vietnam.

Whether VinFast can meet its targets remains to be seen.