After being silent for almost two years, electric vehicle maker VinFast said on Monday that it plans to resume construction as early as April on its $4 billion EV manufacturing plant in Chatham County.
The company announced in July 2024 that it planned to delay the factory’s opening until 2028. Production was originally scheduled to take place in 2024.
The announcement comes as word that the Vietnamese company posted a net loss of $3.9 billion in 2025, continuing a trend of losses, after losing $3.2 billion in 2024. Reuters reports that adjustments in the book value of its proposed Moncure plant accounted for $235.6 million of the loss.
The company has also announced that it has lowered its hiring goals of 7,500 employees to 1,400, according to Businessnc.com.
That could be a problem, however, with the incentives package that the state and local officials are scheduled to give the company.
A Job Development and Investment Grant (JDIG) of up to $316.1 million in state reimbursements over three decades, along with another $400-million incentive package from Chatham County, are contingent on the company meeting its hiring goal of 7,500 and investing $4 billion.
The state is also spending $450 million on infrastructure around the site, including a new highway to gain access in and out of the site.
Merry Oaks Baptist Church, which stood on the border between Moncure and New Hill on the corner of Old US-1 and New Elam Church Road since 1888, met with a wrecking ball in June to make way for the highway.
The church, along with 27 homes and five businesses, had to forfeit its land under eminent domain to make way for the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s highway plans.
This isn’t the first time for the company to scale back plans.
A 995,500-square-foot building was originally planned for the general assembly facility, but in December 2023 the square footage was scaled down to 782,255 square feet.
In April 2024, the company submitted revisions for the building, with a new size of 810,100 square feet.
VinFast’s focus shifted to Asia in 2024, with a groundbreaking on an EV assembly plant in Indonesia. It has also pivoted to markets in India and the Philippines, and has remained somewhat strong in its home country of Vietnam.
However, those familiar with the EV industry and the financial markets still speculate about VinFast’s chances in the United States and Europe, according to several reports in August.
“VinFast certainly tried, but it’s become clear that it’s not really working,” according to an Insideevs.com article. “The cars the brand sells don’t seem to be up to snuff for European and American markets, while losses have continued to mount. It almost feels as if VinFast is solely continuing onward because of the stubbornness of VinFast’s founder Pham Nhat Vuong, who has put up $2 billion of his own money to help fund the company’s ambitions.”
Bloomberg has reported that VinFast is spending $1.57 for every $1 of profit, which means that VinFast lost $3.2 billion last year.
In June, the company also opened a second plant in Vietnam, which can produce 200,000 vehicles annually.
Financial and investing advice company The Motley Fool called the company a “money pit,” echoing Insideevs’ article. It added that in addition to Vuong’s own money, capital from Vuong’s Vingroup, its affiliates, and other external lenders amounted to more than $14 billion that was put into the EV maker.
The Motley Fool also questioned whether VinFast would “shut its doors” and become the next Fisker, which had two failed American EV companies.
“The expectations for the VinFast project continue to dwindle,” Brian Balfour, senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation, told Carolina Journal. “Construction delays combined with a major downward revision for job creation goals are no longer surprising with this debacle. Each bit of disappointing news from this project underscores the absurdity of Gov. Cooper’s decision to tie the North Carolina taxpayer to hundreds of millions of dollars and 30 years of commitment to this unproven company engaged in producing a product with very little consumer interest. Its past time North Carolina scrap its failing corporate welfare schemes and instead focus on a more hospitable business climate for all businesses.”
VinFast must start production at the site by July, according to its agreement with the state. BusinessNC also reports that the state has the option to repurchase the land from the company at the same price as the property at the 2022 sale.
