VinFast—controlled by Vietnam’s richest person Pham Nhat Vuong—is spending $500 million to triple its EV manufacturing capacity in India within a few years.
The expansion will also enable the company’s existing factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to produce electric buses, e-scooters and charging infrastructure, New York-listed VinFast said in a statement. The facility, which started producing electric cars in August, is Vinfast’s first overseas plant.
“The proposed expansion of the Tamil Nadu plant will enable us to broaden our product lineup in India, allowing us to meet a wider range of customer needs,” Pham Sanh Chau, CEO of VinFast Asia, said in the statement. “VinFast believes that Tamil Nadu will continue to serve as a strategic hub in our global expansion journey and will play an important role in supporting India’s green mobility goals.”
The expansion project—which would increase annual production capacity in India to 150,000 from 50,000 currently—is the second phase of an existing $2 billion commitment to scale up its operations in India. The government of Tamil Nadu is allocating an additional 200 hectares right next to VinFast’s existing factory, which sites on a 160-hectare property.
Based in the port city of Hao Phong in northeastern Vietnam, VinFast has been scaling up shipments globally even as the company remains in the red. It delivered 110,362 EVs in the first nine months of the year, surpassing 97,399 deliveries in the whole of 2024. In India, it plans to increase its dealer network to 35 outlets by the end of the year from 24 currently.
With a real-time net worth of $14 billion, Pham has interests in real estate, retail, healthcare, education, and technology through his flagship Vingroup. He built his fortune from an instant noodles business he started in Ukraine in 1993. He sold that business to Nestle in 2010 and built one of Vietnam’s most diversified conglomerates.