Plan V

1 of 7

How Vietnamese BEV specialist VinFast is aiming to replicate its success outside its mother country

AMID AN embarrassment of automotive riches in the Philippines — more than 50 brands of which about half are accounted for by Chinese marques alone — VinFast is working quite hard to get customers to look its way. Aside from being widely seen to be a friendly neighbor, dealing with Vietnam also allows Philippine customers to benefit from the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) agreement. This trade bloc pact, forged in 1992, effectively creates a single market by removing tariffs and other barriers to trade and investment among member states toward lowering cost.

While having a competitive advantage in this regard, VinFast was, admittedly, off to a rather shaky start in the Philippines. Yes, it had made a splash owing to well-designed battery electric vehicles, but there was also a view that it wasn’t adequately ready to compete in our market just yet — whether as a result of past executives’ unfamiliarity with the market’s inner workings or just simply misfortune with some products. I leave it to those with a more direct interaction with the brand — at least through the latter — to make their conclusions. I did ask an owner of the VF 3, the marque’s entry-level model, for an honest assessment of this vehicle. He is happy with it and, despite some minor hiccups, swears by his car’s reliability.

And personally, I have driven VinFast vehicles without issue, at least for the short instances I was behind the wheel during a trip in Ho Chi Minh in the middle of the year, and just recently for a media/content creator trip to Hanoi — where VinFast officials also took us on what can be described as a short tour of the Vingroup kingdom where it belongs to.

Vingroup is a Hanoi-headquartered conglomerste chaired by its founder Pham Nhat Vuong. With vast interests in various sectors from technology, real estate, infrastructure, healthcare, to energy and social enterprise, belonging to this massive empire is arguably VinFast’s biggest value proposition. It deigns to move in big ways because, well, it can.

In Vietnam, VinFast is not only the largest BEV (battery electric vehicle) brand but the leading mobility marque, period. After three quarters of 2025, the company reported it had moved more than 100,000 units in the country — becoming the first auto brand there to notch the feat. “The milestone follows 11 consecutive months as the nation’s best-selling car maker, underscoring VinFast’s unchallenged leadership in the domestic automotive market,” it added in a release.

Its local success notwithstanding, the future of VinFast is predicated on how well it does on the world stage. In this regard, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Establishing a foothold in overseas markets is not a cakewalk.

If a tour of its company’s institutional “trophies” is meant to inspire confidence in VinFast, the hiring of the right people should, in a manner of speaking, help ensure last-mile delivery.

To this end, VinFast recently tapped the services of Antonio “Toti” Zara III to help realize its aspirations. “The story of VinFast goes beyond the product,” he said recently as he met with a delegation of media and content creators in Hanoi. “It’s about the ownership experience.” Mr. Zara steps into the role of VinFast CEO for Southeast Asia — overseeing not just the Philippines but crucial markets of the region, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Mr. Zara is no stranger to the industry where he has assumed various leadership positions in the past. He was last seen with ACMobility, handling new energy vehicle specialist BYD. Over the many years I’ve had a chance to interview Toti, he’s always harped on the inevitability of electrified mobility — even in the Philippines — owing to a range of benefits and advantages. For him, BEV dominance is just a matter time.

At VinFast, he gets to double down on his vision as a newly minted executive. Not only will he lead the Vietnamese full-electric auto brand’s charge in the region, but make sure that an ecosystem supports its rollout. Plenty of things are keeping the executive busy: One is checking on VinFast’s US$200-million production facility in Indonesia, expected to open by next year. Another similar factory in India is already open, and VinFast intends to scale up its initial US$500-million investment there to US$2 billion.

“So today, we’ve explained to media our strategy on how we would use the Vingroup ecosystem to really redefine and change the ownership experience,” he told a number of reporters right after a formal Q&A session with himself and VinFast Chief Engineer for the VF 6 and VF 7 Vincent John Pendlebury.

Amid a glut of so-called new energy vehicle marques and offerings in the Philippines today, the aforementioned girth of what constitutes VinFast’s ecosystem is among the brand’s main unique selling propositions (USPs), according to Mr. Zara.

“We are actually better, if not the same, as other brands in terms of range — which is critical,” he continued. “But again, I’d like to stress (that) it’s not about the car itself. It’s not about range, it’s not only about the technology, but the entire BEV ownership experience.”

For Toti, it’s about getting behind the brand to inspire confidence in buyers. Obviously cognizant of a need to improve in this crucial area, Mr. Zara revealed plans to launch “special programs” unique to VinFast.

A particular one intends to show that VinFast is willing to bet on its vehicles. The so-called “Residual Value Guarantee Program” will see VinFast Philippines guaranteeing 90% value for products that are six months old, with promises also in place for older products. For Mr. Zara, it makes perfect sense.

“It eliminates that barrier of BEV ownership. Let me say that this is an offer that ICE (internal combustion engine) brands would not be able to do. How can we do this? It’s because of the ecosystem within the Vingroup. We are not only a car company, we are a mobility provider, and it’s the ecosystem that would generate that benefit.”

In the Philippines, Mr. Zara wants to continue making inroads for VinFast by rolling out brand-exclusive charging points — toward realizing a dream of being the top BEV brand (yes, you read that correctly) in the country. “We have clear line of sight on how to do that, and I’d like to think that it will happen very soon, (the) exact timing of which I dare not say,” he posited.

“Are we competing against other BEVs? Not directly, no. All the other EV brands (are) doing the same thing. We are advocating the transformation to green mobility. So while we are competing, we are complementing each other… as other brands become strong, as we become stronger. That’s good, because then we would accelerate the transformation towards electrified mobility.”

Another program, launched recently, “Pili Pilipinas.” Disclosed Mr. Zara, “It will be highlighting our future products, and we will ask people to vote instead of having these designs confidential, like all the other brands. We’ll make these designs public, and ask people to vote on their preferred design that will be critical inputs as we finalize future projects.”

Part of moving forward also means accepting that boxes need to be ticked. “We’re in a startup phase,” he conceded. We’re building the network. Right now, we have 10 showrooms that are not yet 100% in terms of facility readiness, in terms of people.

The key is to build brand awareness, and to that end VinFast is gearing up for a relaunch “in a big way.” At the end of the day, Toti Zara wants people to test-drive VinFast vehicles and remove doubts and misgivings over the brand and the powertrain format. “Everyone knows about the practicality of owning a BEV, right? Our task now is to bust the myth surrounding its ownership. We will bust the myth on range anxiety through the expansion of our partner V Green network.

Part of removing that particular pain point is to roll out charging points in destination areas and transit points. The V Green network, serving the growing fleet of full-electric GSM taxis, will also lend itself to private VinFast owners. “Most of the infrastructure is not used at nighttime,” said Mr. Zara in response to this writer during another Q&A session. “Our taxis will be utilizing those EV chargers during those lean hours. This would allow us to build a healthier business case for the infrastructure investment we will make.”

VinFast in Vietnam, according to the executive, boasts more than 150,000 charge points. In the Philippines, V Green has “about 1,000.” Mr. Zara added, “Our first milestone is to get to 15,000 charge points (and) we’re working together with other infrastructure companies, which also have aggressive plans.”

Additionally, VinFast Philippines will also restore the battery subscription program it originally offered when it was launched, but was subsequently scrapped. “Velocity” asked why the company is bringing it back, and why the business model now makes sense.

“It was a key program that (led to) VinFast’s success in Vietnam. That’s why you find VinFast in Vietnam as the number-one car brand. As we launch in other markets, we would like to cut and paste the success story,” posited Mr. Zara. “What’s the difference with the program that we will launch and the one we had (here) for a short time? First, we have more aggressive price gaps between buying a car with a battery and buying one without. Also we have very aggressive subscription fees.”

As an example, the executive said that the entry-level VF 3 BEV bears a standard retail price of P746,000 with a high-capacity battery. Without a battery, the price would be trimmed to “more or less P600,000… even cheaper than an equivalent ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. Subscription fees will be less than P2,000 a month.” For a car of similar size, the owner can usually expect to fork over P5,000 to P6,000 for fuel cost.

“That means considerable savings on fuel and cash outlay,” Mr. Zara declared.

There’s more. “We will bust the myth on accessibility of service through our third-party workshops… again, we want to make that jump to electrified mobility an easier decision for the Filipino consumer to make.”

Toti Zara is not coy about the company’s aspirations. “Again, we want to be the number-one BEV brand by next year,” he stated. The Philippine auto industry is expected to close the year with a BEV share of 4% to 5% — around 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles in absolute terms. VinFast is therefore eyeing to register 8,000 units in sales by next year — helped along by small and subcompact categories, along with an MPV model it will launch in the future. The taxi/TNVS (transportation network vehicle service) market and PUV use might also propel the number to more lofty levels.

Laying out a more comprehensive plan is always a good start — or, in this case, restart. Let’s see if VinFast can manifest its destiny this time.