VinFast has high hopes that the tiny VF3 it unveiled at CES this month will help it establish itself in the U.S. after a rough start that has seen its stock price plummet and the VF8 harshly critiqued by many.
The Vietnamese company never intended to sell the VF3 in North America and while speaking with Yahoo! Finance at CES, the chairwoman of VinFast’s Board of Directors, Le Thi Thu Thuy, noted that “all the market research said US consumers like really big cars,” hence why it launched the VF 8 first.
However, VinFast’s U.S. dealers believe the VF3 has the potential to be a strong seller. After the tiny SUV was shown to dealers in September, the carmaker was urged to bring it stateside and it has decided to do just that.
“Everybody said, ‘definitely, it’s going to be the biggest volume for us,’” Thuy said. “So we went back and we decided to just develop the VF3 for the US market as well.”
Many many technical details about the VF3 remain under wraps, we know it is approximately 125.6 inches (3,190 mm long), 66.1 inches (1,679 mm) wide, and stands 63.8 inches (1,621 mm) tall. This makes it 17.4 inches (442 mm) shorter than a Fiat 500e but the cabin is large enough to support four occupants. Obviously, a small car like this will have a small battery pack and VinFast is targeting a range just exceeding 125 miles (201 km).
Read: VinFast VF Wild Makes Surprise Debut As An Electrifying Mid-Size Pickup
A key reason why dealers are confident the VF 3 will sell well is the price. VinFast has suggested it could go on sale in the U.S. for less than $20,000, before taking into account the $7,500 EV tax credit. While it likely won’t be eligible for the tax credit until VinFast’s $4 billion factory in North Carolina is operational, it could still be the cheapest EV sold in the U.S.
Thuy told Yahoo! Finance that the VF 3 will launch in the U.S. in early 2025. It will be joined by a series of larger models, potentially including a production version of the VF Wild pickup concept also introduced at CES.
