Vietnamese EV maker rapidly expanding network in the US. Experts say don't sleep on this

VinFast announced in 2022 that it would invest up to $2 billion to build a manufacturing plant in North Carolina with the capacity to make 150,000 vehicles a year. Production is expected to start in 2025. VinFast leaders broke ground last summer for the plant in the Triangle Innovation Point in Chatham County.

The brand has been well received because of the publicity around the plant, Williams said. The Leith VinFast store had 36 sales in January, its first month selling. Williams was hoping for 20. The overachievement may be because VinFast came out of the gate with an ultra-competitive offer: a lease payment of $249 a month for the $46,000 VF8 ECO.

"It's a very nice vehicle with probably the best lease in the market," Williams said. "The way they're coming into the market with aggressive leasing is something that's been lacking."

Rhett Ricart, owner of Ricart Automotive Group in Columbus, Ohio, was also impressed by VinFast after visiting the company's Vietnam operation earlier this year. He's now looking into adding the brand to his lineup.

"I went to the plant, I saw them make them ... it's a first-class facility," Ricart said. "I saw the quality of the people that they hired. I saw the amenities that they put on these vehicles."

Ricart says he reminds everybody that when Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen and others entered the U.S. market, "they weren't that good of cars." VinFast, he said, is "way ahead of them."

VinFast's presence in the Tar Heel State led Arthur and Tracey Sprinczeles of Hillsborough to consider purchasing their first EV. The consistent Ford customers, with a 2007 Edge and a 2015 F-150 Platinum in the driveway, liked what they saw with VinFast's aggressive lease offer. They considered Ford's all-electric Mustang Mach-E, but the price for the model they wanted felt steep. The Mach-E starts at $39,895 for the entry-level model and goes up to a starting price of $52,395 for the GT version.

"We would have probably went with a Ford if it wasn't so expensive," said Arthur, recalling the price for the one they wanted being around $70,000. "It was just a little too much, and we wanted the better model."

The Sprinczeleses spent about $2,000 out of pocket to get a VF8 Plus, the higher-end model, from the Leith dealership. Their monthly payment is about $365.

They've liked the vehicle but had an incident a week after purchasing it. The couple were driving down North Carolina's Highway 147 last week when the car made a "boom" noise and slowed down into "crawl" mode. They got out on the side of an exit ramp and called for help; a VinFast technician told the couple to get out of the car, lock it and wait for its system to reboot. After 45 minutes, as the pair waited for a tow truck, they got back into the car and found everything turned on again, so they drove home. They are sending it back for an inspection by the dealer.

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