VinFast has gotten further than a lot of newly founded car companies so far. The Vietnamese automaker has a few years of sales in its home country under its belt and the ball’s rolling on plans to build its EVs in North Carolina. You probably haven’t seen a VinFast on American roads yet but on July 14, 2022, it opened six stores to sell cars in California. Here's what it’s like to visit a VinFast showroom as a customer.
The VinFast store I visited was in the Hillsdale Shopping Center, in San Mateo, California. About 25 minutes south of San Fransisco, the retail store is right on the northern tip of Silicon Valley, not too far from Facebook (Meta) offices. The mall itself is solidly mid-tier, and the outdoor promenade has storefronts that are updated. It’s a nice place to be, but not overly spendy, or as show-stopping as say, Union Square in San Fransisco. I am speculating that maybe this is intentional; the cheapest VinFast will cost about $40,000, a lot cheaper than the $100,000 Lucid Air. Lucid seems choosier with where it places its in-person studios, often in high-dollar, high-arts spaces, like the Meatpacking District in NYC.
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