Terrible Sales Won't Stop VinFast From Building U.S. Factory

VinFast is going through it right now. Data shows that the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker has been able to shift just 128 of its ill-received EV crossovers in the first five months it has been on sale in the U.S. Still, according to Bloomberg, the company is planning to being construction of its own factory in North Carolina on July 28th as it heads toward taking itself public.

Rivian Recalls Nearly Every Car It Has Built

The plant will reportedly be located in Chatham County’s Triangle Innovation Point, and it’s expected to have an initial production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year when it officially opens in 2025. Just for reference, that works out to be about 12,500 vehicles per month. Meanwhile, the company is only moving an average of 26 cars per month. Rough.

Bloomberg says the factory will consist of two main areas: electric vehicle production and assembly sites. The proposed complex is also going to house facilities for suppliers.

Back in March of last year, newly-minted President Joe Biden reportedly tweeted a statement from the White House that said the VinFast plant would create over 7,000 jobs. The factory will also have an initial investment of as much as $2 billion according to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Le Thi Thu Thuy.

“When it begins operations, the factory will be VinFast’s primary supplier of electric vehicles to the North American market,” Thuy said in a statement reported by the outlet.

Bloomberg reports that VinFast plans to list in the U.S. by merging with special purpose acquisition company Black Spade Acquisition Co. in the second half of this year. The deal would apparently give VinFast an equity value of about $23 billion. That works out to about $180,000,000 per vehicle registered in the U.S. Do with you will with that information.

Here’s some more information from Bloomberg on just what it’ll mean for VinFast to go public in the U.S.:

The EV firm’s existing shareholders are set to own 99% of the company, leaving a tiny portion for SPAC investors who hold on through the deal. An equity valuation of $23 billion, or $27 billion including debt, would mean VinFast will trade at a premium to most peers including Rivian Automotive Inc. and Nikola Corp., according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Ken Foong and Siti Nur Fairuz Khalil.

[…]

Black Spade raised $169 million in an US IPO in 2021. About 84% of Black Spade shareholders opted to redeem their stock for cash when they approved a deadline extension for the SPAC merger last week. The redemptions leaves less than $30 million in the SPAC’s trust.

According to Bloomberg, the North Carolina factory is a part of VinFast’s — let’s just say ambitious — goal of global expansion. Whether it’ll work out still remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: VinFast has got to start selling a lot more cars, and fast.