Vietnamese Company Vinfast Planning Debut Of A New EV
With new technologies, comes the opportunity for upstart companies to make an international splash. Rimac, the Croatian company making electric supercars, comes to mind. In the same way, we have Vinfast, a Vietnamese carmaker, introducing plans to release an EV into the global market.
The company, owned by one of Vietnam’s largest conglomerates, may not have any clout overseas. However, they already sell a fair amount of vehicles in their home country.
Vinfast has a duo of Lux models, which are adapted BMW 5 series, as well as a Vietnam-friendly rebadge of the Chevy Spark, called the Fadil. Where that may not sound as impressive as making your own car, that’s exactly what Vinfast says they’re gearing up to do.
We expect to officially debut the model at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2020; launch a test programme in January 2021 and mass produce the cars by July 2021
The company has partnered with battery-giant LG Chem, out of South Korea, and Pininfarina, the Italian design firm working on an EV of their own. The joint venture will apparently see a production model coming for sale in the United States by 2022.
We’ll have to wait until the LA Auto Show to see how this thing will stack up, but if the wind is in Vinfast’s favor, this could put Vietnam on the EV map. For starters, having Pininfarina and LG Chem in their corner doesn’t hurt.
