After completing their previously announced ‘business combination’, the SPAC merger between Vietnamese VinFast and the already listed shell company Black Spade Acquisition, shares peaked at $37 on Tuesday after being $22 initially. This instantly made VinFast leapfrogging Ford and General Motors for the time being.

These high share prices would value the Vietnamese carmaker around $85 billion compared to Ford, which is currently worth just under $48 billion, and GM, about $46 billion. But in after-hours trading, the share price fell again by more than 12%. Eventually, VinFast was valued at $23 billion.

Looking at the example of American truck maker Rivian, these values tend to be highly volatile. Rivian reached a stock market value of $150 billion in November 2021 and is now just under $20 billion after bottlenecks in the supply chain. As the number of public shares is limited, VinFast is still owned mainly by billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong today.

Vietnam biggest employer

VinFast Auto Ltd is the automotive branch of Vingroup JSC. This group was founded in 1993 by Pham Nhat Vuong in Ukraine and grew to become Vietnam’s most significant industry group with +45 000 employees, active in several sectors like hotels, tourism, real estate, finance, and electronics.

The group put big money on the table – around seven billion dollars – to create its electric car brand five years ago and wants to grow lightning fast. So far, in Vietnam, all cars have been imported from abroad. But to reach enough scale, VinFast immediately chose to go international.

Five-billion dollar factory in Hanoi

In its home country, the five-billion dollar factory in Hanoi has a capacity of 250 000 cars a year, expandable to half a million. The technology and know-how to set up an international car brand on such a scale, the Vietnamese gathered by shopping around worldwide.

For instance, its Production Director, Sean Calvert, and the Chief Design, David Lyon, came from General Motors. The first CEO was former Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller. But the latter changed seats again four months after being appointed CEO of VinFast to return to Europe for personal reasons. Later he joined American electric truck builder Nikola Motors, but just a week ago, he announced stepping down immediately ‘for family reasons’ and returning to Europe again.

VinFast also used subcontractors like Pininfarina for the design and others like Magna Steyr and ABB to set up its first car factory. It bought 1 200 sophisticated production robots from the latter, for instance.

American car factory

On 31 July recently, the Vietnamese car manufacturer held the groundbreaking ceremony of its electric vehicle factory in Chatham County, North Carolina, its first car plant in the US. It should produce 150 000 cars annually in phase 1 and employ some 7 500 workers by 2025.

The planned $4 billion investment was reeled in by North Carolina using the carrot-and-stick method. VinFast was awarded a $1.2 billion incentive package from the State of North Carolina for this project and critical financial support from the City of Sanford, Chatham County, and the Golden Leaf Foundation.

So far VinFast has shipped around 2 100 EVs to the US and 800 to Canada. In Europe, despite an extensive list of VinFast stores in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and the possibility of making a reservation to buy a car, it’s not clear yet when the Vietnamese will deliver in Europe, as the website only mentions the ‘end of 2023’.