Vin-who? One Mysterious Car Company Is Trouble

Issue #171

Today, we discuss a crazy company you've never heard of, and we give you the reasons why.

It's hard to break into the American market. However, if this is your goal, you must come up with a complete product.

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Market News

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Safety and Recalls

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Car Culture

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In The Know

The craziest car company you've never heard of

When we imagine crazy car companies, we usually think of either personalities or vehicles. Elon Musk comes to mind as an eccentric founder whose antics have helped (but mostly hurt) Tesla.

Then, there are vehicles such as the Ineos Grenadier. Crazy enough to be different, but grounded enough to work as a sustainable brand.

There's one company that doesn't fit in any category. It's crazy for all the wrong reasons, and chances are, you've never heard of it.

It's VinFast and, yes, we'll give you time to google it. VinFast is a Vietnamese manufacturer that performed so poorly in the first year that it earned headlines such as "Return to Sender,""Unacceptable," and "Abysmal."

Talk about building a reputation.

Granted, the company owns many firsts in automotive history, believe it or not. It hails from Vietnam, and it's the first ever to sell cars outside the country. It's also the first-ever Vietnamese to sell vehicles in the US, all the while doing so with a midsize SUV, the VF8, which was designed by Pininfarina, by the way.

When VinFast promised to enter the US, there was cautious hype.

Some were genuinely excited, but there's a reason why you haven't seen or even heard of a VinFast.

They suck, but you didn't hear that from me. This famous Donut video shows James and Nolan, two established figures of automotive YouTube, reviewing the Vinfast, and they're not kind.

It was so bad that the company begged Donut Media to review it again after fixing the problems.

This was important because the company had promised to establish operations in the US by building a plant in North Carolina. Here's how that is going.

That's strange, because in reality, this company simply doesn't give up. Surely, it has lost $911 million in a quarter and is now taking evasive action, reducing efforts to enter the US and Europe to focus on Southeast Asia.

However, there are still a handful of dealerships in the US. But, you might be wondering, why does it matter? Why are we talking about the craziest, worst car company you've never heard of?

It may have a shaky presence, the worst vehicles ever reviewed in the US (according to many reviewers), and 200 cars for sale in the US (not sold), but it has somehow landed in a class action lawsuit.

Apparently, some people bought the VinFast and are frustrated by how slowly it charges. We're talking 24 hours to charge it, as you can read here.

Which begs the question: why would anyone buy this car?

Well, Consumer Reports makes a case for having one. Granted, don't buy it. Instead, maybe (MAYBE) leasing it works. And, you might be wondering, who's this car for?

It's for those who want a cheap car, as this link highlights.

However, at $47,000, you're better off buying a Nissan or a Chevy. Perhaps, in some years, we'll see VinFast at the same level as others, but for now, it goes to show how hard it is to break into the US market.