Vietnamese EV Major Rolls Out Electric SUVs At Its Tamil Nadu Plant
VinFast CEO to NDTV: "Our Tamil Nadu Plant Will Be a Global Hub for EVs"
VinFast Asia CEO Pham Sanh Chau unveiled the company's ambitious plans for India and beyond, as the Vietnamese Electric Vehicle major formally rolled out its first electric SUVs - VF6 and VF7 - from its 400-acre manufacturing facility in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu.
"This plant in Thoothukudi is VinFast's first manufacturing facility outside Vietnam, and the first in South Asia. It carries a lot of emotion and encouragement for us," Mr Chau told NDTV. "It proves that we can turn the impossible into possible - and do so at high speed."
Mr Chau revealed that VinFast plans to launch a new EV model every six months, in a bid to meet India's evolving demand for clean mobility. "We hope to fulfill the growing EV expectations in India," he said, confirming strong pre-booking enquiries even before the commercial launch.
The initial installed capacity of the plant is 50,000 vehicles per year, with scope to expand to 1.5 lakh vehicles in the second phase. VinFast's long-term vision targets production of 1 million EVs annually worldwide by 2030, with India playing a central role in that roadmap.
The company has so far employed 500 people, half of them from Thoothukudi, many trained under the Tamil Nadu government's "Naan Mudhalvan" skill development scheme. "We are committed to recruit more, aiming to reach 1,000 soon," Mr Chau added. At full capacity, the factory is expected to generate 3,000 to 3,500 direct jobs and many more through ancillary industries.
VinFast is pursuing a comprehensive EV ecosystem in India, with partnerships for both distribution and after-sales. It has teamed up with RoadGrid, myTVS, and Global Assure to offer robust digital services and nationwide service support. myTVS plans to open 120 service workshops, ensuring customer confidence across key cities.
Additionally, VinFast is collaborating with BatX Energies for battery recovery and recycling, promoting a circular economy and minimising environmental impact.
According to VinFast's press release, the Tuticorin plant is the company's third operational facility globally, and the fifth project in its international manufacturing network. Equipped with state-of-the-art automation and advanced robotics, the facility includes a Body Shop, Paint Shop, Assembly Line, Quality Control Centre, Logistics Hub, and an auxiliary cluster for local vendors.
"This plant lays a solid foundation for us to make Tamil Nadu not just a manufacturing hub for India, but VinFast's largest export base for South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa," Mr Chau told NDTV.
VinFast's entry is part of Tamil Nadu's larger vision to emerge as the EV capital of South Asia. The company's emphasis on localisation, technology transfer, and workforce upskilling also aligns with India's Make in India and green industry goals.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin signed the inaugural vehicle, in a symbolic gesture to mark the state's growing prominence in India's electric mobility landscape
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
After Tesla, Vietnam EV maker VinFast enters India; opens factory in Tamil Nadu to deliver 1.5 lakh cars annually
Vietnam's VinFast began production at a $500 million electric vehicle plant in southern India's Tamil Nadu state on Monday, part of a planned $2 billion investment in India and a broader expansion across Asia. The factory in Thoothukudi will initially make 50,000 electric vehicles annually, with room to triple output to 150,000 cars. Given its proximity to a major port in one of India's most industrialized states, VinFast hopes it will be a hub for future exports to the region. It says the factory will create more than 3,000 local jobs. The Vietnamese company says it scouted 15 locations across six Indian states before choosing Tamil Nadu. It's the center of India's auto industry, with strong manufacturing, skilled workers, good infrastructure, and a reliable supply chain, according to Tamil Nadu's Industries Minister T.R.B. Raaja. 'This investment will lead to an entirely new industrial cluster in south Tamil Nadu, and more clusters is what India needs to emerge as a global manufacturing hub,' he said. VinFast Asia CEO Pham Sanh Chau said the company has aspirations to export cars across the region and it hopes to turn the new factory into an export hub. The new factory could also mark the start of an effort to bring other parts of the Vingroup empire to India. The sprawling conglomerate, founded by Vietnam's richest man Pham Nhat Vuong, began as an instant noodle company in Ukraine in the 1990s and now spans real estate, hospitals, schools and more. Chau said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had invited the company to 'invest in a big way' across sectors like green energy, smart cities and tourism, and said that the chief minister had 'promised he will do all what is necessary for us to move the whole ecosystem here.' VinFast's foray into India reflects a broader shift in strategy. The company increasingly is focusing on Asian markets after struggling to gain traction in the U.S. and Europe. It broke ground last year on a $200 million EV assembly plant in Indonesia, where it plans to make 50,000 cars annually. It's also expanding in Thailand and the Philippines. VinFast sold nearly 97,000 vehicles in 2024. That's triple what it sold the year before, but only about 10% of those sales were outside Vietnam. As it eyes markets in Asia, it hopes the factory in India will be a base for exports to South Asian countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka and also to countries in the Middle East and Africa. India is the world's third-largest car market by number of vehicles sold. It presents an enticing mix: A fast growing economy, rising adoption of EVs, supportive government policies and a rare market where players have yet to completely dominate EV sales. 'It is a market that no automaker in the world can ignore,' said Ishan Raghav, managing editor of the Indian car magazine autoX. EV growth in India has been led by two- and three-wheelers that accounted for 86% of the over six million EVs sold last year. Sales of four-wheel passenger EVs made up only 2.5% of all car sales in India last year, but they have been surging, jumping to more than 110,000 in 2024 from just 1,841 in 2019. The government aims to have EVs account for a third of all passenger vehicle sales by 2030. 'The electric car story has started (in India) only three or four years ago,' said Charith Konda, an energy specialist who looks at India's transport and clean energy sectors for the think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis or IEEFA. New cars that 'look great on the road,' with better batteries, quick charging and longer driving ranges are driving the sector's rapid growth, he said. The shift to EVs is mostly powered by Indian automakers, but VinFast plans to break into the market later this year with its VF6 and VF7 SUV models, which are designed for India. The company chose the VF7 for its India launch — unlike the models introduced in the U.S., Canada, the EU, or Southeast Asia — to position itself as a premium global brand while keeping the price affordable, added Chau, the VinFast Asia CEO. Chinese EV brands that dominate in countries like Thailand and Brazil have found India more challenging. After border clashes with China in 2020, India blocked companies like BYD from building their own factories. Some then turned to partnerships. China's SAIC, owner of MG Motor, has joined with India's JSW Group. Their MG Windsor, a five-seater, sold 30,000 units in just nine months, nibbling Tata Motors' 70% EV market share down to about 50%. Tata was the first local automaker to court mass-market consumers with EVs. Its 2020 launch of the electric Nexon, a small SUV, became India's first major EV car success. VinFast lacks the geopolitical baggage of its larger Chinese rivals and will also benefit from incentives like lower land prices and tax breaks for building locally in India. That's part of India's policy of discouraging imports with high import duties to help encourage local manufacturing and create more jobs. The push for onshore manufacturing is a concern also for Tesla, which launched its Model Y in India last month at a price of nearly $80,000, compared to about $44,990 in the U.S without a federal tax credit. 'India's stand is very clear. We do not want to import manufactured cars, even Teslas. Whether it's Tesla or Chinese cars, they are taxed heavily,' added Konda. The road ahead remains daunting. India's EV market is crowded with well-entrenched players like Tata Motors and Mahindra, which dominate the more affordable segment, while Hyundai, MG Motors and luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz and Audi compete at high price points. Indians tend to purchase EVs as second cars used for driving within the city, since the infrastructure for charging elsewhere can be undependable. VinFast will need to win over India's cost-sensitive and conservative drivers with a reputation for quality batteries and services while keeping prices low, said Vivek Gulia, co-founder of JMK Research. 'Initially, people will be apprehensive,' he said. VinFast says it plans to set up showrooms and service centers across India, working with local companies for charging and repairs, and cutting costs by recycling batteries and making key parts like powertrains and battery packs in the country. Chau added that after a customer clinic in September 2024 and input from top engineers in Vietnam, the company upgraded its feature list to better match Indian customer expectations. Scale will be key. VinFast has signed agreements to establish 32 dealerships across 27 Indian cities. Hyundai has 1,300 places for Indians to buy their cars. Building a brand in India takes time — Hyundai, for instance, pulled it off over decades, helped by an early endorsement from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. VinFast can succeed if it can get its pricing right and earn the trust of customers, Gulia said, 'Then they can actually do really good.'
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
Tesla to open Delhi showroom soon? Date, location, models — Here's what we know
₹ Elon Musk's EV making company Tesla is all set to open its second showroom after Mumbai, this time in Delhi. According to a report by NDTV, the Tesla Delhi showroom will open later this month. This comes in less than a month of the electric vehicles company opening its first showroom in India, at BKC, Mumbai. According to reports, the Tesla Delhi showroom will be located at Worldmark, Aerocity, close to the New Delhi International Airport. Once open, people across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) will be able to access the store and buy the coveted EVs. As per the NDTV report, the Tesla Delhi showroom is expected to open on August 11. However, Tesla has not yet confirmed the date. Tesla, the EV maker headed by billionaire Elon Musk, made its grand entry into India on July 15 with imported vehicles. The company launched its Model Y with price starting at ₹ 59.89 lakh while opening its first experience centre in BKC, Mumbai. Tesla, led by American tech billionaire Elon Musk who had in the past cited India's high import tariffs for the company not entering the country earlier, will be importing the Model Y as a completely built unit (CBU), from its Shanghai manufacturing facility in China. The mid-sized electric SUV Model Y, which was once the world's best-selling car, will be offered in India in two variants -- rear-wheel drive with base price at ₹ 59.89 lakh and long-range rear wheel drive at a base price of ₹ 67.89 lakh. The deliveries are slated to start in the third and fourth quarter of 2025, respectively, for the two variants. Initially, registration and delivery started in Delhi, Mumbai, and Gurugram, the company said. However, according to the website, now you can register your car anywhere in India. Through its Tesla Design Studio, customers will be able to customise their Model Y exterior, interior, and even its features, the company said. The Model Y competes with a range of electric luxury cars from German automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.
Mint
4 hours ago
- Mint
Out of rare earths, India's automakers turn to old tricks and new tech
New Delhi: On Monday, VinFast, a subsidiary of Vingroup JSC, a large Vietnamese conglomerate, opened its electric vehicle (EV) plant in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu. The pure-play EV maker will use the plant to assemble its vehicles, and is expected to invest ₹16,000 crore on the facility in phases. VinFast makes everything from e-scooters to e-buses, and will initially use the facility for the Indian market. The company has opened bookings for two of its premium electric SUV models: VF 6 and VF 7. The Thoothukudi plant will also serve as an export hub for the company. Unlike its Indian rivals, VinFast, presumably, will not face any issues on the rare earth magnet front as it will only assemble EVs at the Thoothukudi plant. The company sources its rare earth magnets from South Korea's Star Group Industrial (SGI), according to Reuters. The news agency had reported earlier that SGI is investing in a factory in Vietnam to produce these magnets, specifically for VinFast and Hyundai. Vietnam has the world's second largest reserves of rare earths. While news of its India debut has been in the ether for a while now, Vinfast's entry is unlikely to see executives at Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, and other Indian EV makers break out the bubbly. India's EV makers have been on the backfoot because of the rare earth magnet crisis triggered by China, which has put a giant question mark over the future of their assembly lines. The entry of a rival that does not face a rare earth problem is not the sort of news that will set their pulses racing. Putting on a brave face, seasoned leaders across two and four-wheeler companies had a stock response ready when they were asked about the rare earths crisis during their post results call at the end of July: 'The situation is manageable as of now." TVS' director and chief executive officer (CEO) K.N. Radhakrishnan told investors that the company is 'managing day-to-day operations". Maruti Suzuki's Rahul Bharti, senior executive officer of corporate affairs, acknowledged it is a challenge engineers are working to address. The leadership of Mahindra and Hyundai, meanwhile, stressed that the situation had no bearing on the coming months. Thrust into the limelight Although they have been used widely since the 1990s, few people outside the automotive engineering field knew about the critical role rare earths play in propelling automobiles. It was Japanese giant Toyota that first put rare earth magnet motors on the radar when it introduced its famous Prius model during the 1990s. In an instant, this turned out to be a game-changing technology. Rare earth magnets are critical components in electric vehicles due to their energy efficiency, and compact size, which enable motors to deliver a peak performance. An EV's motor drives it forward by converting electrical energy received from the battery into mechanical energy. Aside from traction motors, these magnets go into everything from power steering systems, to braking systems, to windscreen wiper motors in EVs and internal combustion engine vehicles. The global rare earth magnet market was valued somewhere around $11 billion in 2022. Despite this, for years, the role these magnets played and India's dependence on China to source them, went unnoticed. Annual reports of companies certainly did not cite them as a key risk that could one day bring production to a grinding halt. That changed in April, when China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, retaliating against the 145% tariffs the US had slapped on it. Today, nearly everyone tracking the automobile sector is keenly aware of the role rare earth elements play in keeping EV assembly lines in motion. While the US-China spat escalated the trade war between the two sides, other countries, including India, also bore the brunt. China has the world's largest reserves and is estimated to control over 90% of global production of rare earth motors. That dominance and outright dependence has put India in an awkward position—given that no one of sound mind would describe relations between the two countries as warm. Overnight, the curbs threatened to derail the central government's ambitions of making India an electric vehicle manufacturing hub, an aspiration on which it has bet over ₹60,000 crore through various promotion schemes over the last six years. For Indian EV makers, they pose an existential threat. 'Companies have started importing full motors or some parts of them. Others are looking to route from European suppliers who have access to Chinese magnets," said an industry executive working with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). 'They have solutions in place right now, but nobody has very clear answers," the person added. Policymakers, auto sector executives, and anxious stock market investors—are now wondering what lies beyond. Mint spoke to automobile manufacturers, industry executives and observers to put together this piece on how the sector is trying to beat the crisis and find sustainable long-term solutions. Back to basics When adversity strikes, the first instinct is to find answers in what was done in the past. And in the past, there were no magnets. There were induction motors. Such motors use a stator and a rotor to produce magnetic field unlike rare earth magnet motors which use magnets to produce the field. Ravi Pandit and his team at KPIT Technologies, a Pune-based engineering research and development team working with auto companies, have been quietly working on improving this old school technology. Usage of induction motors, however, increases the weight of the vehicle as it's larger and heavier in size. That's the biggest challenge. 'We tested motors extensively, and we have come up with the first one, which is really very appropriate for anything of a public transport nature," said Pandit, chairman and co-founder of the company. Heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks and buses can introduce such technology without having to worry about small additions to the weight of the vehicles, he explained. The company claims to have matched the performance of rare earth magnets. 'We are now working with various OEMs in the country to do it across the range," said Pandit. Which is, expand adoption of induction motors from two- wheelers to four-wheelers. While some OEMs are ready to trust old technology again, others are putting their faith in their engineers to find a different solution. Rare earth-free magnets Since the crisis began in April, some start-ups and auto component companies have also begun looking to use ferrite magnet motors, which do not use rare earth elements. Ankit Somani, co-founder of Conifer, a ferrite magnet-based motor maker, flew down from California to seek opportunities here. The company has set up a plant in Pune to make such motors. Ferrite is a magnetic material mainly composed of iron oxide and other metal oxides. 'Ferrite magnet motors are generally weaker than rare-earth magnets. However, we have figured out a way to have better efficiency and performance than rare earth magnets," Somani said. 'We have developed in-wheel motors that perform much better than the hub motors being used in vehicles right now." With the requirement of power much lower in two-wheelers, the use of ferrite magnet motors is said to be under consideration at most of the top brands making electric scooters and bikes. Among the known names, Ola Electric has taken the lead in introducing rare earth-free motors. During the company's investor call on 14 July, founder Bhavish Aggarwal informed shareholders that development of these motors is at an advanced stage. 'Our rare earth-free motor is something we started developing more than a year or two back. And some of you who visited our factory a year ago would have seen this. In fact, we were quite transparent about it," Aggarwal said. 'Then people thought that we were just showing it casually, but now it's happening for real," he explained. Going lite While one strand of the industry is working on eliminating rare earths from the motors, others are backing the use of light rare earths, whose supply has not been restricted by China. Rare earths are divided into two categories—heavy and light. Heavy rare earth magnets are used in electric vehicles which require higher power such as cars and motorcycles. Using light rare earths, such as Cerium and Neodymium, is a quicker solution, say analysts, noting that new motor architecture takes a lot of time to be tested and certified ready for use. Sona Comstar, the country's eighth largest component maker, has already developed motors using light rare earth and is in the process of testing the new motors. Vivek Vikram Singh, managing director and group chief executive of Sona Comstar, said that light rare earth solutions can be used in the medium term by two- and three-wheeler makers, and even small car manufacturers, as they require less power to run. '[But] all these alternative motors would require months of testing and validation with customers before commercial production can begin," Singh said in response to Mint's queries. 'In the short term, there is no alternative to Chinese heavy rare earth element (HREE) magnets, but in the medium term, HREE-free magnets can be used as viable alternatives." Ather co-founder and CEO Tarun Mehta concurs with Singh that the two-wheeler industry can look beyond heavy rare earths and instead use light rare earth magnets. 'The industry has a way of moving past this. Stop using heavy rare-earth magnets. Unlike cars, trucks, or buses, our industry can build motors without using heavy, rare-earth magnets. We can move towards lighter, rare-earth magnets," Mehta explained. While there is visibility over solutions for two-wheeler makers, passenger vehicle companies haven't given a clear indication on which path they intend to take. Both Maruti and Mahindra hinted that their engineers are working on possible solutions. Industry experts and executives say rare earth magnets will not go out of the picture completely. And until they do, the industry will have to figure out a way to get supplies of this critical component. Short-term headache? Although the challenge to figure out viable solutions has been hard, there are expectations that the industry will have alternate technologies ready in the next two years. 'With the pace of development of new technologies and investments being put in, the industry will have solutions ready soon. The dependence on rare earths will eventually reduce in the medium term as the development of the alternative methods is quite advanced," said Subhabrata Sengupta, partner at Avalon Consulting. The country is also working on securing alternative supply chains for critical minerals and developing processing capabilities for rare earth magnets. Since 1950, state-run IREL Ltd has been mining rare earths in the country, and since the crisis began, it has gained the spotlight for its efforts to mine rare earths. Indeed, India is attracting international interest on this front. Japanese company Proterial, formerly known as Hitachi Metals, is looking to set up a rare earth magnet plant in India, according to two people aware of the matter. The company wants to source rare earth ores and oxides from within the country and outside to process Neodymium Ferrite Boron (NdFeB) magnets, one of the strongest forms of rare earth permanent magnets. Hindustan Zinc and Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) are among the domestic companies that have expressed interest in mining and processing rare earths. On its part, the government is currently finalising details of a ₹1,345 crore programme to promote the development of rare earth magnets. From mining players to automobile companies, there is a rush to find a solution to the China dependency. While several technologies are showing potential, there will still be questions over their viability until the vehicles they power hit the road and customers embrace them.
