VinFast had initially planned to complete the factory in July 2024 but later pushed back the start of operations to 2025. — Reuters picHANOI, May 30 — Vietnamese electric car maker VinFast is looking at further delaying a planned US$4 billion factory in North Carolina, a person briefed on the matter said, as the loss-making company struggles to gain favour with US consumers.
VinFast, which sold fewer than 1,000 cars in North America last year, said in a statement to Reuters it was “conducting a thorough review and evaluation of all aspects of the construction process for our North Carolina factory.”A spokesperson for North Carolina’s Chatham County, where ground for the factory was broken in July, said officials there were not aware of any delay in the project.
Republicans won North Carolina in the 2020 presidential elections by a small margin and Biden’s campaign is spending heavily to win the state in the November presidential election. Most of its cars sold domestically are also sold to related parties. Its net loss last year widened 15 per cent to US$2.4 billion.Despite weaker global demand for EVs and a price war, VinFast said there have been no changes to its goal of selling 100,000 cars this year, twice as many as it targeted in 2023, as it expands abroad.