Op-Ed: “Wild East” Gamble — Why VinFast is Burning Money to Attain the Stars

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CleanTechnica is all for renewables and electrification.

We exist to remind people of the Earth and to rid it of smoke belchers, offensive power technology, and local weather deniers. Idealistic as we’re, we’re additionally grounded within the fact that it will by no means occur shortly sufficient, and can occur principally out of necessity.

And should you learn the tales right here, we query, oftentimes lambast, generally expose, however principally reward and provides credit score the place credit score is due. I simply need to say this to set the tone for this piece.

After I acquired the newest unaudited experiences from VinFast final September, I requested them if I might get an audited report earlier than I began writing my opinion on VinFast and the place it’s going—a minimum of available in the market the place it meant to develop the quickest and the largest—proper right here within the USA. Elsewhere on the planet, they’re seeping (that’s the phrase) into the market. Deliberately gradual, I assume. However by no means overly cautious.

The experiences by no means arrived, however that gained’t cease a narrative. And it appears nothing will cease VinFast’s push into the US, a push just lately highlighted by its aggressive presence at main occasions just like the Electrify Expo, an important step in re-establishing the model after some missteps, which incorporates unhealthy press on the VF8.

Now, I discovered two causes to write down this piece: 1) the residual worth program the corporate is working within the Philippines and Indonesia; 2) and much more profoundly, area exploration.

Sure, VinGroup is now wanting on the heavens for enlargement, investing in a brand new firm known as VinSpace Joint Inventory Firm. In accordance with Reuters, who broke the story, the brand new VND300 billion ($11,840,000) enterprise shall be concerned in space-related actions, particularly telecommunication satellite tv for pc operations and scientific analysis.

Doesn’t that sound like burning money?

Just lately, CleanTechnica revisited their plant in Vietnam for the third time and in contrast notes between 2022 and 2025. There may be nice progress in manufacturing, analysis, and growth again in Vietnam. This wasn’t simply progress; it was transformative, on the very least.

Not monetary recommendation

I’m not a finance man, so this story was developed with numerous assist from an auditor good friend (whose title I can not point out) to make me perceive what the rows and columns of numbers suggest. The numbers themselves have been staggering, however two distinct impressions got here to thoughts to me as a non-finance man.

First, my thought is: this firm is loopy. This degree of economic danger is matched solely by their historical past of audacity. I’ve lined the model since 2017 after they held a contest to current to the Vietnamese folks designs for the brand new nationwide automobile, which was later to turn into the Lux A2.0 and Lux SA 2.0.

Think about that. As an alternative of simply getting a number of heads collectively within the design section, they elicited the assistance of the entire nation, with 60,000 residents casting votes.

I noticed that over time, the corporate was dropping cash at such a wide ranging tempo that another automobile firm would have executives exiting or scrambling for options. VinFast executives appear to be sleeping simply wonderful.

I requested a finance knowledgeable good friend and journalist to inform me what the Vietnamese automaker’s newest unaudited monetary report means. He stated if we take a look at it traditionally, it’s merely good investing. He identified how Tesla suffered losses too, each capital and operational. He framed the experiences as a masterclass in strategic spending: take huge losses now to dominate the worldwide EV market later.

Wild, Wild East

The present numbers inform a wild story. (Notice: not audited, not up to date since September 10, 2025.)

VinFast delivered 72,167 EVs within the first half of 2025—a staggering 223% leap from the identical interval final yr. Add of their e-scooters and e-bikes, they usually’re shifting critical quantity: 114,484 two-wheelers delivered, up 447% year-over-year. Income hit $663 million within the second quarter alone, almost doubling from final yr. With 394 showrooms now unfold throughout the globe, it’s the form of operational breakthrough that ought to have traders celebrating.

The latest press launch stated “VinFast continues to interrupt information within the home automotive market by efficiently delivering 20,380 electrical automobiles of assorted fashions in October 2025, bringing the full variety of VinFast autos delivered nationwide to 124,264 models within the first 10 months of the yr.”

These figures are actual.

Crucially, lots of these automobiles are “gross sales” to a associated entity: the GSM taxi service—an enormously profitable endeavor within the nations it has positioned in. Whereas the cash strikes from one company pocket to a different, it represents important quantity and real-world testing that reinforces the supply figures.

As an alternative, the underside line appears like a monetary catastrophe zone. But it surely that true?

Every part or nothing

However right here’s the factor—that is pure Pham Nhat Vuong.

The billionaire chairman has made it crystal clear he’s prepared to lose no matter it takes to make VinFast succeed. You don’t hear that from the overly cautious American automobile govt afraid of the inventory backlash of such an announcement.

Mom firm VinGroup decides quick. And good son VinFast carries out the orders shortly. I used to be sitting of their Hanoi places of work in 2022 when the memo went out: no extra inside combustion engines. Interval. Whereas Tesla was the one main new-world automaker courageous sufficient—or insane sufficient (like Nissan)—to wager all the pieces on electrical, right here was a Vietnamese startup that had barely found out typical automobiles making the identical all-or-nothing wager.

With Vuong on file saying he’ll burn by means of more cash if needed, these staggering quarterly losses begin wanting much less like monetary mismanagement and extra like a deliberate warfare chest being deployed. Each greenback of loss is deliberate, a part of a $2 billion gamble that the majority People will ultimately purchase automobiles from a model they will’t pronounce. The corporate is torching money on three large fronts: constructing a community of shiny showrooms from California to Germany, launching advertising blitzes to persuade skeptical patrons that “Vietnamese luxurious EV” isn’t an oxymoron, and funding R&D labs working across the clock on next-generation autos.

“Dwell lengthy and prosper”

The intentions behind VinSpace are most likely the “highest” attainable type of ambition. With Mr. Spock’s Vulcan salute, “stay lengthy and prosper.”

Down on Earth, its sprawling Hai Phong facility continues to churn out automobiles, whereas its American manufacturing intentions rising on a North Carolina farmland are briefly on maintain. This facility isn’t only a manufacturing facility—it’s VinFast’s total American dream materialized in metal and concrete. If it really works, the corporate dodges crushing import tariffs and slashes transport prices whereas planting a flag on the planet’s best automobile market.

It’s right here that the delays—seen as a kind of much-lambasted missteps—took on a cosmic, nearly divine that means.

When Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina in late 2024, the state’s infrastructure and building setting floor to a halt. The VinFast website, although bodily shielded from the worst of the floods, was months away from important vertical building. Some inside observers will need to have quietly thought-about the delay an surprising type of “divine windfall,” sparing a multi-billion-dollar construct from potential catastrophic disruption. If it doesn’t work, properly, that’s a large failure.

The brutal math is straightforward: VinFast is paying the astronomical (no pun meant) value of admission to play with Tesla, GM, and Ford. The corporate’s wager is that right this moment’s monetary massacre will appear like pocket change as soon as they’re manufacturing a whole lot of 1000’s of EVs yearly — whether or not that’s in Vietnam, Indonesia, India, or on good ol’ American soil.