by Phuong Nguyen, Francesco Guarascio and Ben Klayman
May 29 (Reuters) – Vietnamese electric car (EV) maker VinFast plans to further delay its planned $4 billion (3.69 billion euros) U.S. factory in North Carolina, a said a person familiar with the matter, as the loss-making company struggles to win over American consumers.
VinFast announced in 2022 the construction of an EV and battery factory in the United States, with an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, in order to benefit from the efforts of the American administration on subsidies granted to electric vehicles manufactured locally.
The company had initially planned to complete the plant in July 2024, but then pushed back the start of operations to 2025. It is considering another delay, said the source, who asked not to be identified due to the confidentiality of information.
VinFast, which sold fewer than 1,000 cars in North America last year, told Reuters it was “conducting a thorough review and evaluation of all aspects of the North Carolina factory construction process.” .
Chatham County, North Carolina, where the plant’s cornerstone was laid in July, declined to comment on a possible delay.
A local government spokesperson, however, said VinFast had revised the size of the factory’s general assembly building twice. The latest revision was submitted in April and is still under review by the county permit department.
WIN NORTH CAROLINA
When VinFast announced its project in North Carolina in March 2022, US President Joe Biden promised that the factory would create more than 7,000 jobs.
While Republicans won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential election by a slim margin, Joe Biden’s administration is pumping a lot of money into it to win the state in the November presidential election.
Last year, VinFast sold fewer than 35,000 cars worldwide, compared to a target of 50,000 units, most of them in its own market and even though it has a factory in northern Vietnam with capacity annual production of 300,000 cars.
Moreover, most of the vehicles sold on the domestic market were to related parties and last year, the group’s net loss widened by 15% to reach $2.4 billion.
Founded in 2017 and focused entirely on EVs since 2022, VinFast, which has yet to turn a profit, posted a net loss of $618 million in the first quarter. (Reporting by Phuong Nguyen, Francesco Guarascio and Ben Klayman; French version Kate Entringer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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