Vietnam's Richest Man Bets $2 Billion To Sell Cars To Americans (bloomberg.com) 77
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The billionaire behind six-month-old Vietnamese auto startup VinFast plans a feat even Toyota and Hyundai couldn't pull off during their early days: sell a car in the U.S. Pham Nhat Vuong, the Southeast Asian country's richest man and now in charge of the new automaker, is so intent on exporting electric vehicles to the lucrative American market in 2021 that he's plowing as much as $2 billion of his own fortune to reach that goal. His cash would account for half the capital investment of VinFast, which began delivering cars to Vietnamese consumers with BMW-licensed engines earlier this year and aims to expand into electric vehicles.
"Our ultimate goal is to create an international brand," the 51-year-old tycoon said in an interview at the Hanoi headquarters of the car company's parent Vingroup JSC, which Vuong founded and holds the title of chairman. "It will be a very difficult road and we will have to put in a lot of effort. But there's only one road ahead." [...] The tycoon, whose net worth is $9.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is undaunted. He sold some of his shares in Vingroup last year and plans to sell as much as 10% more to raise funds for the ambitious project. He owns 49% of VinFast, while the parent, Vingroup, holds 51%. [...] VinFast's first EV won't roll off its assembly line until late next year, but Vuong said he plans to export those vehicles to the U.S., Europe and Russia in 2021. VinFast, which operates a 335-hectare factory in the northern port city of Haiphong, is selling its first line of vehicles -- a hatchback, sedan and SUV -- at below cost. The hatchback retails for the equivalent of $17,000, while the four-cylinder sedan goes for $47,400 and its SUV is offered at $60,400. The company targets production of as many as 500,000 vehicles a year by 2025.
"Our ultimate goal is to create an international brand," the 51-year-old tycoon said in an interview at the Hanoi headquarters of the car company's parent Vingroup JSC, which Vuong founded and holds the title of chairman. "It will be a very difficult road and we will have to put in a lot of effort. But there's only one road ahead." [...] The tycoon, whose net worth is $9.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is undaunted. He sold some of his shares in Vingroup last year and plans to sell as much as 10% more to raise funds for the ambitious project. He owns 49% of VinFast, while the parent, Vingroup, holds 51%. [...] VinFast's first EV won't roll off its assembly line until late next year, but Vuong said he plans to export those vehicles to the U.S., Europe and Russia in 2021. VinFast, which operates a 335-hectare factory in the northern port city of Haiphong, is selling its first line of vehicles -- a hatchback, sedan and SUV -- at below cost. The hatchback retails for the equivalent of $17,000, while the four-cylinder sedan goes for $47,400 and its SUV is offered at $60,400. The company targets production of as many as 500,000 vehicles a year by 2025.
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but asian brands are all over the place here
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Vietnam and China are still 3rd world countries for most of their area, selling an EV in the mass market there at $50-100k is impossible. America is one of the few countries that EV's will make an inroad in the mass market because even the poorest amongst us have disposable income, even Europe doesn't really have the market except in the larger cities and richest of its countries, but go to the old Eastern Bloc countries or most of the Mediterranean area (except perhaps France, Monaco and regions of Italy)
Re:Eat your own dog food (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the US is significantly different than Europe in that respect. Selling EVs in California is an entirely different proposition than selling EVs in Alabama.
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Alabama has charging stations in and around the big cities. So do plenty of other states with major cities.
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How so? Alabama's average income is $61k, California is $71k. As I said, even those making the Federal minimum wage (~$18k/y which is higher in most states) have an average $150/week disposable income, you could relatively easily make a car payment for an EV (if a high-end car is what you prioritize).
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Even those shitholes still buy less EV's than Chinese shitholes as the cost of everything else is higher in America.
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How so? Alabama's...
Because in Alabama, buying an "import" is like publicly admitting you have a small penis.
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Maybe he can buy a defunct US brand. A Chinese manufacturer bought MG and sells them in the UK, where the real MG is from. They are doing okay and actually their EV is really, really good for the money.
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I thought that buying a large SUV for daily commuting was because the driver was compensating?
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Yes, but it has to be an "American" SUV or it doesn't count.
Identity Politics Maybe? (Score:2)
I know the Hybrid Prius is very much part of identity politics in our country with ownership being far lower in Red states than in Blue https://priuschat.com/threads/... [priuschat.com] . Maybe electrics will shake out the same way.
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If his cars are cheaper than a typical EV, it stands a good chance. BTW, the mass market price of EVs in the US is cheaper. Chevy Bolt is $31K for example. Even Tesla Model 3 is essentialy 40K not including incentives/rebates. Yes, this is higher than the lowest tier Civic, but in line with a mid range auto, cheaper than many SUVs, minivans, and trucks. So there's range to undercut in this market. I don't know where you got the $50-100K range from, but it's not accurate anymore.
Price is what matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and the younger generation has zero brand loyalty.
Re:Price is what matters (Score:4, Interesting)
if he can make a reliable car for less than the big guys he wins. That's how the Japanese killed the American car companies. Right now an entry level 4 door sedan that isn't a tiny death trap is pushing $20k. Do it for $12, or even $15 but with Toyota/Honda like reliability and he's got himself a car company.
Oh, and the younger generation has zero brand loyalty.
But he already failed at reliability by licensing BMW tech.
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And their prices are already at or above comparable car prices in the US, while they are still in Vietnam.
Re: Price is what matters (Score:1)
BMW tech is fine (Score:2)
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The Japanese won not just because they made a reliable car for less, but also because US made highly unreliable autos with mediocre quality. The US market would have been shaken up even earlier if it hadn't been for a very strong attitude to avoid foreign products (I can still remember a great uncle of mine who served in WWI who felt that buying a Japanese or German car was nearly a traitorous activity).
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Look at the Tata Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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He might do well with EVs though. There is a lot of demand for EVs, especially affordable ones. Manufacturers can't even make them fast enough at the moment, with waiting lists for affordable cars from Hyundai, Kia and MG.
There is an opportunity to break into that market, but he needs to be quick because by 2021 there will be more competition at that end of the market.
Unless he was expecting to sell more luxury EVs in which case he is probably screwed.
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> Eat your own dog food
The Vietnamese proverb more accurately translates as "Eat your own dog."
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Meh, what he really needs is to find an underserved niche.
His cars actually look pretty nice, so they're 1-up on things like Coda and Geely that tried this market before. Where he's failing is... he's offering a large car and an SUV. In the US market. Yes, it's the largest slice of the market, but there are a million competitors. At least he's targeting the luxury market?
He should be aiming for more underserved areas. How about a nice hot hatch? Those are almost all going away... the Honda Fit is on the cho
$60,000 (Score:2)
A $60,000 SUV is being sold below cost? What a nice guy!
Malaysian has their Proton brand (Score:2)
So why not?
If the quality meets the standards of the EU, the market is open.
The Chinese tried to do it but as soon as one of their models got approved they started to send poor quality clones (which were cheaper to make).
So all the inspection organizations just revoked their approvals again.
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I don't know about Europe, but in Australia, the first Chinese brands to hit the market were Great Wall and Chery. Neither of them are particularly strong brands even in China, and they're clearly aimed at the very bottom of the market. Great Wall has had some degree of success selling utes, but Chery seems to have pretty much disappeared.
Foton and SAIC have arrived more recently, and seem to be having more success. Foton is making inroads into the market for utes and light trucks. They seem to be relyi
Retaliation? (Score:2)
So... we kill three million Vietnamese in the war and their ultimate retaliation is to flood the country with shitty electric cars?
Re: Retaliation? (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I understand, and I could be wrong, is that Vietnam doesnt really have much in the way of animosity towards the US, especially the younger Vietnamese. First of all they won, and while the US did bomb the crap out of the North, the North was barely industrialized so they never lost much in the way of infrastructure. Most of the bombs were dropped on empty jungle. Some of your old school war vets might still not be too fond of the US but that's about it.
Re: Retaliation? (Score:5, Interesting)
At one place with tunnels he went to an NVA veteran gave them a nice speech about how brave the American soldiers were, and how much respect the Vietnamese have for them.
Maybe it was just a tourist thing, but my son said it seemed genuine. Then he bought a whole bunch of souvenirs.
The Vietnamese are not really communists, they are too entrepreneurial for that.
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The Vietnamese are not really communists, they are too entrepreneurial for that.
The people are never communist. It's always the dictators who claim to operate communistically.
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The people are never communist.
You should talk to someone from the former Yugoslavia. Many of them have affectiction for their former way of life, but then they weren't part of the Soviet Bloc, and so had many freedoms the Poles (for example) never had.
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> First of all they won,
That's a really good point, and one that isn't necessarily obvious to Americans until someone points it out.
I was in high school in the 1980s. As far as American History was concerned, Vietnam didn't exist. Literally, the textbook ended with Apollo & Watergate, and moved almost everything about the Vietnam War into an APPENDIX. Our teacher told the class point blank that the school board forbade teachers from talking about the "controversial" aspects of the war, informed us th
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1. It was a joke man, no need to get so serious about it.
2. You must've gone to a particularly bad school... I also went to school in the 80's and we learned all about the Vietnam war.
3. If it's given a "objective treatment at arm's length" then you can't honestly say they won anything... we massacred the Vietnamese on an almost unparalleled scale in modern warfare. Three million is more an estimate of total casualties but we realistically killed more than a million NV and VC between combatants and civilian
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That's one way to look at it.
Another point of view: North Vietnam got what they wanted, America did not get what they wanted. So North Vietnam won.
And pointing out how many more people were killed by Americans is not exactly something one should parade around.
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Did Germany also beat the USSR in WWII?
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Some things on the Internet never stop being fun, and one of those is pointing out that the US lost the Vietnam war. Do you one of the major reasons they lost the war? Because they started measuring progress in body count rather than in areas under control.
If the point of invading Vietnam was genocide, then I guess mortality rate would have been a good measure of success. Luckily, that wasn't the aim.
Imagine you have a competition to see who can build the best house, and at the end the other guy has a nice
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The purpose of War is not to kill the enemy. That's incidental.
The purpose is to pursue your political objectives via hard, un-adulterated Force.
Yes, the US slew masses of Vietnamese. And still LOST.
The Vietnamese unified their country and threw out Foreign influence. Ergo, they WON.
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You all miss the point... I pretty clearly said "it wasn't a victory for anyone", but you still can't say it was a loss for the US. It was a withdrawal. "Loss" implies defeat, we were never at any point defeated. Our politicians simply lost the nerve because a bunch of pinko hippies got their feelings hurt by the bloodshed and politicians only care about reelection. Had we stayed, we'd have either won or killed so many NV and VC that their political leanings towards communism would've been entirely irreleva
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but you damn sure can't say we lost the war just because we stopped short.
Stopped short of winning that is.
The whole purpose of the US going into Vietnam
was to stop the Russian-backed VietCong from taking over the country.
And yet that is exactly what happened after the US ran away.
That's known in military strategy as LOSING, fucktard.
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Stopped short of genocide that is. We won every engagement, won every metric by which you measure victory. If you beat the fuck out of your opponent for 12 rounds but don't knock him out or kill him that's not stopping short of winning.
We didn't and still don't give a fuck what took over the country, the whole point of going in was to beat Russia's communist ideology and stop the expanse of the USSR as the dominant super power... which we ultimately did, you dumb fuck. We don't give a shit what goes on in V
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"Sing a song of Sony, a pocket full of Yen.
Magnavox and Zenith, undersold again.
See the U.S. suffer, for the job we do.
It's how we get revenge, for losing World War II."
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However bad they are, they are unlikely to be nearly as shitty as your own, Internal Combustion engined, ones are.
Oh, but you have shamed me. I shall surrender my efficient, inexpensive and reliable car in favor of an incredibly expensive electric car with such limited range I'll need to charge it every other day just to make it to work.
How could I have been so foolish as to not have earlier seen the genius of your anonymous coward ways.
Building competitive cars is hard (Score:2)
As such, it's hard to imagine that a new company, with a new supply chain, will be
Fuck reCAPTCHA (Score:4, Informative)
Any site that won't let you see content without being spied on by Google (and helping them train their AIs for free) is crap.
I can't access content protected by reCAPTCHA, I get a connection error. (I just unsub'd from humble bundle for the same reason, they literally send you a reCAPTCHA challenge before you can check out, even if you are logged in.) Fuck Bloomberg. Here is the company site [vinfast.vn]. Also the WP page [wikipedia.org]. VinFast is partnered with GM, and has design by Pininfarina and engines from BMW (and possibly GM) and manufacturing by Magna Steyr.
Their big problem in the USA is that people have limited experience with goods manufactured in Vietnam. When people hear Vietnam, the next word they think is "war".
Electric cars might change brand conservatism (Score:2)
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It would take us a long time to not feel weird about a Vietnamese combustion engine car, but with an electric car, who knows?
It's not clear to me whether these vehicles are EVs or ICEVs. From the summary (and article):
and...
Emphasis mine. Maybe they meant four-door sedan, rather than four-cylinder?
Old Car Biz Joke (Score:2)
borring...another set of ICE cars? (Score:4, Interesting)
$60k SUV? Who's gonna buy it here in the US? What are the plans for service network? This here is a meh. An overpraised Yugo? Maybe if the $17 hatchback was a plug-in hybrid with very long guarantee...still a risks if they will be around so long.
The only way to get in the market is via some cheap EV as present offerings are too expensive for utility they offer for generic populous.
Get me a $10K small EV with 80 mile range, 10Yr guarantee and recharge overnight from standard 100A service and you may interest me for a 2nd, around the town car.
VinFast or LusFaster? (Score:2)
A VIN? (Vehicle Identification Number)
Did they even do name research?
money to burn (Score:1)
Rich commie? (Score:2)
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Simply too little money unless you are Elon Musk (Score:2)
Basically all the big car brands spend a HUGE amount of money advertising.
GM alone advertises for more than 3 billion dollars/year, with Ford at over 2 billion and Toyota just under 2 billion..
And yet none of those companies are making big strides in the market.
Elon gets enough advertising by his stunts and word of mouth so Tesla does not have to use any, but I do not think that the Vietnamese tycoon in question can manage that..
Need cheap, not luxury (Score:2)
My last vehicle was $28k, and I about choked on it, as it's the most I've ever paid for a new vehicle. Until somebody can sell a good electric vehicle for a hell of a lot cheaper than they are currently going, they aren't going to succeed in the US.
- Necron69
Is there that much money to be made in cars? (Score:2)
great information (Score:1)