HANOI – Vietnam’s automaker Vinfast said on Friday it would push back its plan to start operating its electric vehicles factory in the United States until 2025, citing procedural delays.
The unit of conglomerate WingGroup JSC last March flagged plans to build a $4 billion EV factory on 712 hectares (1,759 acres) of land in Chatham County, North Carolina, with a target completion of July 2024.
“We need more time to complete administrative procedures,” Winfast said in a statement on the delay.
Once the facility assembles VinFast EVs, customers may be entitled to incentives under the terms of the Inflation Reduction Act signed by US President Joe Biden.
VinFast received an air permit from the local authorities to start construction last month. It still requires a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers designed to minimize damage to water quality and wetlands.
The plant is expected to create more than 7,000 jobs and churn out 150,000 vehicles, according to the company’s latest prospectus released Thursday, including capital expenditures to build the first phase of $1.4 billion.
Last year VinFast filed for an initial public offering to list on Nasdaq to fund its plant construction in the United States.
VinFast began its first sales outside Vietnam last week, delivering its first 45 cars to California on the first day.
Its revenue in 2022 was 14.9 trillion dong ($631 million), down about 6.9% from 2021. Net loss widened 55% to 49.8 trillion dong from 32.2 trillion dong, its latest prospectus showed.
($1 = 23,670 dong)
(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Martin Petty)