The Vietnamese brand Vinfast and its CEO, billionaire entrepreneur Pham Nhat Vuong, are showing their ambitions in the electric car market. With its first model, the VF8, the firm is preparing its arrival in a coveted and highly competitive field, where a fierce price war is raging.
The Vinfast brand, still unknown to the general public, intends to achieve a Tesla-style success story by attracting a wealthy clientele keen on new technologies. In order to take this risky bet, Pham Nhat Vuong has pulled out all the stops to publicize its still very young brand.
Designed by the illustrious Pininfarina, the VF range to which the VF8 belongs — along with the more compact VF6 and VF7 — enjoys an elegant look. Under the hood, the 4.75 m long family SUV has an 87.7 kWh battery supplying a powertrain of 353 horsepower in the Eco finish or 408 horsepower in the Plus finish. Faster than the Tesla Model Y on the exercise from 0 to 100 km / h, shot in 5.5 seconds (compared to 6.9 seconds for the Model Y Propulsion), the autonomy disappoints, with respectively 471 and 447 km announced . The newcomer is therefore on a par with the Model Y, which nevertheless has much smaller batteries, while the Skoda Enyaq 80, whose price has recently fallen, displays 544 km with a 77 kWh accumulator.
To seduce and gain the confidence of prospects, Vinfast takes up Kia’s strategy in its time and offers a 10-year, 200,000 km warranty for the car, and an unlimited number of kilometers for the battery.
While it was initially announced at more than €60,000, the brand has revised the price list of its VF8 to position it at €50,990 in Eco finish and €59,390 in Plus finish in France. This rather premium rate makes it automatically ineligible for the ecological bonus of €5,000, widening the gap with a competition that is now well established.
Despite great promises, the first tests in the United States, where delivery has already begun, have proved to be less than flattering. Journalists describe a car that was not very accomplished, suffering from faulty systems and poor handling.
If the brand still has a little time to complete the development of its SUV before the launch in France, it seems unlikely that the VF8 will succeed in attracting such a demanding clientele. It only remains to hope that the VF9 – a large SUV –, VF7, VF6 and VF3 are more in line with the ambitions of the brand.