Vietnam is not on the “edge” of the global electric vehicle revolution. However, Vietnamese electric vehicle market still has many bottlenecks that need to be resolved in order to truly “gallop”…

Few options for consumers who want to buy electric cars

VinFast VF e34 seems to be the only model that users can choose to buy today. In fact, the market does not have many products for consumers to choose, although, global automakers have all announced plans to electrify and launch the first electric car models, but no plan to bring back to Vietnam. In the previous year, Thaco Auto has also made a “statement” about bringing the Kia EV6 electric car – the first pure electric vehicle (BEV) of KIA brand, to Vietnam, but the detailed plan has not been announced. .

A luxury car company – Porsche has sold Porsche Taycan electric car in Vietnam. However this is a model with a high price tag, not aimed at mass users. Porsche Taycan electric car is over 5 billion VND.

Mercedes-Benz once attracted attention of Vietnamese electric car market in April. The homepage of Mercedes-Benz Vietnam appears more Mercedes-EQ electric cars in the product portfolio. Some other automakers such as Nissan also show interest, but they have not brought concrete results in the Vietnamese electric car market.

Solution for electric vehicle charging station coverage

Buying and using electric vehicles, one of the major concerns of consumers is the system of charging stations, or more specifically, how they will charge electric cars, is it convenient and cost effective? Currently, VinFast is the only electric car manufacturer in Vietnam. According to the plan announced by VinFast, the company will deploy more than 2,000 charging stations with more than 40,000 charging ports for electric motorbikes and electric cars in parking lots of central locations of provinces and cities such as apartments, office buildings, commercial centers, supermarkets, bus stations, public parking lots, universities, colleges, hotels…

Specifically, at parking lots, bus stations, VinFast electric vehicle charging stations usually provide at least 5 electric car chargers with capacity of 30kW, at least 5 electric car charging stations with a capacity of 11kW. In apartment buildings and offices, VinFast plans to deploy from one to two DC30kW car charging posts and six to seven AC11kW charging posts (total can charge 9 electric cars simultaneously). At commercial centers, it is expected that VinFast will deploy mixed charging stations including: 6 to 8 fast charging posts for electric cars with capacity of 30kW, 2 to 4 posts for charging electric cars with capacity of 11kW.

The electric car charger deployed along highways and national highways is DC60kW fast charging post, with 2 charging ports that can serve 2 cars at the same time. At each charging station at rest stops and petrol stations, VinFast plans to deploy 10 DC60kW charging posts.

Also in December, the People’s Committee of Ha Tinh province and Vingroup officially kicked off VinES battery factory in Vung Ang economic zone (Ha Tinh province). The factory has a scale of phase 1 is 8 hectares and total investment is 4,000 billion VND. This is an important activity in VinFast’s strategy of autonomous battery production, ensuring diversified supply, meeting international standards for each types of electric cars of the Vietnamese automaker.

At an event on “Infrastructure for electric vehicles in Vietnam” in September 2021, Mr. Vo Quang Lam – Deputy General Director of Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), said that the construction of charging stations will cause certain impact on Vietnamese power system, such as increasing the load, affecting the operation of power grid, and overloading the regional power grid if there are no timely coping solutions.

According to EVN Deputy General Director Vo Quang Lam, currently, there are two main directions of technological solutions to overcome the influence of electric vehicles that are being researched and directed by countries. It is smart charging that allows shifting the charging time to low load, with a cheaper charging price. The second is the Vehicle to Grid (V2G) solution, particularly, with a large capacity, the batteries of electric vehicle can reverse the capacity and support the grid when needed.

In fact, electric car charging stations are not only a headache for Vietnam but for most countries around the world when entering the era of electric vehicles.

Expectation of a series of preferential policies for electric vehicles

In 2021, a series of policy proposals has been made to facilitate the construction and development of electric car industry in Vietnam.

In mid-May 2021, Vingroup proposed a pilot preferential policy aimed at encouraging businesses to produce and stimulate consumers to use environmental friendly electric cars. It is recommended to focus on preferential policies on electric car tax such as special consumption tax and registration fee for electric vehicles in the next 5 years. At that time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade affirmed that the pilot application of the preferential policy of not collecting special consumption tax and registration fee for 5 years as proposed by Vingroup was “considerable”.

Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) has also proposed the Government on preferential special consumption tax and registration fee for electric vehicles; supporting customers to buy electric vehicles and supporting electric vehicle manufacturing businesses, especially in the period from 2021 to 2030.

At the meeting held on December 8, 2021, the Government submitted to the National Assembly Standing Committee a proposal to reduce special consumption tax. Accordingly, the Government proposes to reduce special consumption tax rate by 5-12 percentage for battery electric cars in the first 5 years after the revised law takes effect, from the 6th year onwards, the tax rate will increase for both imported and domestically produced vehicles. Specifically, for electric cars with 9 seats or less, the special consumption tax rate is currently 15% and is proposed to be reduced to 3% in the first 5 years, increased to 10% from the 6th year. Meanwhile, electric cars from 10-16 seats, the proposed tax incentive will be only 2% and up to 5% from the 6th year, from the current tax rate of 10%.

The above proposals are all aimed at encouraging investment in the production and development of battery-powered cars, contributing to reducing environmental pollution. The price of electric cars is still higher than the price of petrol and diesel cars, but the price is expected to decrease thanks to the advancement of technology and electric vehicle batteries. Experts predict that the electric car market in Vietnam will develop more strongly if there are appropriate incentive policies.

It can be seen that in 2021, the electric vehicle industry in Vietnam has had certain strong development marks, but for the market to develop further, there are still many problems to be solved, from the variety of choices for electric vehicle models for consumers, to the construction of reasonable charging station system and decisions to encourage and develop the industry…

Source : VnEconomy