Vietnamese automaker VinFast has announced plans to build an assembly plant near Raleigh, North Carolina, to make electric vehicles and buses, as well as a battery plant, with production to begin in July 2024. For an idea of what to expect, we toured parts of the VinFast industrial complex in Hai Phong, near Hanoi. It is a massive 830-acre complex that builds vehicles, buses, scooters, assembles battery packs, and houses key suppliers.
The vehicle assembly plant in Vietnam is modern and shows its flexible manufacturing expertise by building an assortment of vehicle types and sizes with powertrains ranging from battery packs to the 6.2-liter LT1 V-8 from the C7 Corvette, all on the same line. The machinery is modern and programmable, the factory clean and lean in its delivery of parts and subassemblies—which arrive via automated guided vehicles.
VinFast’s Impressive First Stab at Automaking
It is VinFast’s first stab at automaking, but the factory appears to rank with the most state-of-the-art facilities in the world. When VinFast was founded in 2017 the site was swampland, part of the Hai Phong harbor. In 21 months VinFast created dry land and built the complex, while designing and developing the first three vehicles to be made in Vietnam. VinFast has the capacity to build 250,000 vehicles, 3,000 electric buses and 250,000 electric scooters a year with plans to increase capacity to 950,000 vehicles a year.
The plant is currently making gasoline-powered sedans, SUVs, and hatchbacks, as well as the first electric vehicle, the VinFast e34. Next up are a pair of new midsize SUVs: the two-row 2023 VinFast VF 8 and the three-row 2023 VinFast VF 9. The original plan was to offer them with an internal combustion engine or as battery-electric vehicles. But Pham Nhat Vuong, chairman of the Vingroup private conglomerate that created VinFast, decided production of gasoline-powered vehicles will cease by yearend and the plant will make electric vehicles only. That will include a family of EVs that will grow to include the compact VinFast VF 7 next year and continue to go smaller with the VinFast VF 6 and tiny VinFast VF 5.
Retooling to Make EVs Only
To retool the plant for EVs only after only three years is an expensive pivot that may take a while to offset the cost. The chairman said it represents a big loss and is a big price to pay, but proves the automaker is only following one path going forward. “We want to contribute a small part in making the planet better for the next generation,” he said.
The new line of EVs have been designed for global appeal—although in a nod to the domestic market they did not consider using bamboo as a sustainable material for interiors because in Vietnam, bamboo is a weed and that could turn away a potential buyer.
The VF 8 and VF 9 will be exported to North America for sale at the end of the year and continue until the U.S. plant goes into production. VinFast will also export to Europe and is doing a site search for a plant there. A decision is likely to happen quickly if the U.S. process is any indication. The deal for the U.S. plant was done quickly. North Carolina was not initially expected to win the site selection process but found itself on a short list of two. When a last-minute pivot to the state was made, the deal was done in weeks.
VinFast will start with a $2 billion investment to build 150,000 vehicles a year in North Carolina, creating 5,000 jobs. A second phase will double the investment and bring jobs to 7,500.
The deputy CEO of manufacturing is Shaun Calvert, a General Motors alumni from Australia, who will oversee all the operations. He says the North Carolina will replicate some aspects of the plant in Vietnam as they will build some of the same vehicles and want synergies and savings from economies of scale.
Press and Body Shop
Our tour of the vehicle assembly plant in Vietnam started with the press shop, which can do 4,200 blanks an hour and has an army of Kuka robots that press out 1,200 metal parts an hour in a shop designed to supply parts for a million vehicles a year.
The body shop is almost completely automated, a mechanical jungle of flying sparks that covers more than 1 million square feet with 1,200 ABB robots currently geared for 38 jobs an hour, producing 207 cars a day on a single shift. The plan is to increase the speed to 60 vehicles an hour eventually, but not this year.
The slower pace will continue as a second shift is added mid-year with plans to go to three shifts in the fall. They will run 5.5 days a week. The initial goal is to build 250,000 vehicles annually. The chairman wants to see capacity grow to 950,000 vehicles a year by the end of 2023, already moving up his initial schedule of 2026.
The body shop in the U.S. can be smaller than in Vietnam because it need not accommodate combustion-engine-powered vehicles, Calvert says. The amount of automation will be the same.
The paint shops in both plants will be similar but the U.S. will use a waterborne paint process.
Final Assembly
General assembly in the Vietnam plant requires almost 2.2 million square feet with all models on a single line that is 4 km (2.5 miles) long. Here is where the employees are, adding most of the 3,000 main components and subassemblies that arrive on self-guided pallets. Side lines build up doors, chassis, and powertrains for the vehicles that travel between stations on overhead conveyers. The pivotal moment is when the body is married to the chassis with its battery pack. All the checks, balances, and quality assessments you would find in a Western plant are in place. In addition to fluid-filling stations for combustion engine vehicles, there are superchargers at the end of the line for the EVs.
The final assembly area in the U.S. facility will be half the size to make only three models: the VN 8, VN 9 and VN 7. VinFast will also make electric buses in North Carolina, but not scooters.
In Vietnam, each employee is trained to work two different stations. They are considered good, middle-class jobs in Vietnam. But it is a low-cost place for industry; it is cheaper to build vehicles in Vietnam than in China or Mexico, our tour guide says.
Battery Plant
Since November 2021, the battery pack plant in the VinFast complex has been working night and day, packaging Samsung cells into battery packs in a plant with the capacity to make 70,000 packs a year.
Robots sort through the supplied lithium-ion cells, picking good ones for the packs, rejecting those that don’t meet design requirements. Rejection rate is 0.5 percent. There are 5,000 Samsung cylindrical cells in each pack, which weighs about 550 pounds. If there is a problem, the whole pack must be replaced, not just the bad module.
The cells are welded into modules that are water-cooled, and then electrical components are added to the tightly packed battery pack. Housings and covers are made in-house. VinFast makes 70 percent of the components itself, 30 percent come from suppliers. After an air leak test for the enclosed battery pack and other testing, it is charged to 30 percent and sent to the vehicle assembly plant.
Like the vehicle assembly plant, the battery pack plant is designed to keep expanding, with a second line being added and an area of empty space that will soon be filled with equipment, as well.
Making Battery Cells Too
VinFast also began construction in December of a battery plant about 190 miles away in Ha Tinh. It will be ready this fall with the capacity to produce 100,000 battery packs annually. The plan is to expand with a partner to produce battery cells, as well, and increase capacity to 1 million packs a year. VinFast will be making its own cells with the help of its partners by the end of the year, VinFast CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy says. VinES, which researches, develops, and manufactures batteries, is working to co-develop advanced silicon and solid-state batteries.
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