Vietnamese carmaker VinFast said on Thursday it will begin delivering its new electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to local customers this week and will target overseas deliveries in the coming months.
VinFast, which began operations in 2019, is gearing up to expand in the United States, where it hopes its two electric SUV models can compete with legacy automakers.
“After Vietnam, VinFast expects to export the first batch of VF9 to international markets in the coming months,” VinFast said in a statement, without providing a specific timeline for deliveries of the new model.
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The VF9 model was initially scheduled to debut at the beginning of this year.
The company currently sells the VF8 model of SUV. These started to ship last year and deliveries to customers began this month. The company has said it would ship the second batch to the US in the second quarter of 2023.
VinFast, backed by Vietnam’s biggest of conglomerate Vingroup JSC, is the country’s sole EV maker.
As of December last year, VinFast said it secured 55,000 orders globally, of which 12,000 were from the US market.
- Reuters, with additional editing by Vishakha Saxena
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