VinFast car factory ready ahead of schedule

The plant in the northern port city of Hai Phong has a capacity of 250,000 cars and 250,000 electric bikes a year in this phase. The capacity will double when the second phase is finished in 2025.

The plant, built from scratch in just 21 months, can churn out 38 cars every hour.

Almost a third of the plant site has been set aside for potential supporting industry partners seeking to put up their own plants. VinFast targets using 60 percent local parts in its cars and 100 percent for electric motorbikes.

It will deliver the first Fadil cars to customers starting June 17. The Fadil is a small urban crossover utility vehicle (CUV) which will come in six colors. Its sedans and SUVs will be delivered from the end of July.

The VinFast factory in Hai Phong City.

"The success of VinFast today is a feat of Vietnam's automobile industry, helping the country reach global levels and affirming that the private sector is an important driving force," Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at the plant's inauguration ceremony.

He said that in the auto industry, VinFast is "a big guy next to the giants." Therefore, it needs to partner with local automobile manufacturers to increase its power.

"Its development is inseparable from supporting industries. All major manufacturers have suppliers. I want VinFast to be a pioneer in setting a vision for the Vietnamese supporting industry to improve," the PM said.

VinFast, a unit of Vietnam’s largest private firm Vingroup, unveiled its first made-in-Vietnam cars in March. It had showed off prototypes of its first two high-end car models at the Paris Motor Show in France last October.