Last week, I travelled to Vietnam and drove the latest product from VinFast, the VF MPV7 and well, it got me thinking about a couple of things. First, the incredible rise of this company, which was founded only in 2017. Second, the comfort features on its vehicles. I would like to address both here.
VinFast is a rather remarkable company, founded by Pham Nhat Vuong, Chairman of the VinGroup, Vietnam’s largest conglomerate and a real-estate mogul who started as an instant noodle maker in Ukraine. One day, he felt that it was ridiculous that Vietnam, which was rapidly developing, didn’t have a homegrown carmaker and imported all its cars.
VinFast began its story with an internal combustion engine sedan, but soon it dawned on them that the automotive market was switching to electric vehicles. A country like Vietnam with limited petroleum resources would benefit immensely by moving to electric traction.
Cut to today, VinFast commands a one-third share of its home market and has displaced legacy car manufacturers like Toyota and Hyundai. Their vehicles dominate the taxi segment, and the company has its own taxi service. Not just that, VinFast also entered the electric two-wheeler market, and the ubiquitous Japanese mopeds and scooters are making way for this company’s scooters. And it is kind of obvious that they also make electric buses.
Nonetheless, I was in Vietnam to drive their passenger cars and understand their bet on the Indian market.
MPVs in India
Now, VinFast began operations in India late last year by importing kits of VF6 and VF7 electric SUVs, which are being assembled at its manufacturing facility in Toothikudi, Tamil Nadu. The facility, which will have an annual capacity of 1,50,000 units, will receive $500 million as investments.
The Vietnamese company has had limited success, with monthly sales touching 700 in March. But now they want to scale up, and that is where the VF MPV7 comes in.
The Multi-person Vehicle (MPV) market will grow fastest in India in the coming years due to rapid urbanisation. The additional space offered in the third-row seats is also a major reason, and the success of vehicles like the Maruti-Suzuki Ertiga, Kia Carens Clavis and even the Toyota Innova is evidence of that.
It is also a segment that is ripe for electrification. The new seven-seat Mahindra XEV 9S selling more than 3,500 units each in February and March, becoming India’s top-selling electric vehicle, is proof of that.
The VF MPV 7 is a dedicated SUV and not a modified one. It is evident in its long wheelbase—2,840mm—which actually makes the car just a shade shorter than the Toyota Innova Hycross. It also makes the third row surprisingly nice, because the dirty secret about most three-row vehicles is that if you’re anywhere over five feet tall, they’re not really meant for you. But I could sit comfortably in the third row.
How is it to drive? Well, actually, the MPV7 is surprisingly sprightly for a large vehicle with a 150-kilowatt motor (a shade above 200 horsepower), which, when tested at VinFast’s test track at their Hai Phong facility, clocked up to 100 kilometres per hour in around ten seconds all the way to a top speed of around 160 kilometres per hour.
Yet, when I turned the steering wheel at the skid pad at the end of a straight road, the MPV7 was relatively stable. Obviously, there will be a bit of body roll during high-speed manoeuvring, but nothing that was out of hand. At more sedate speeds, it was a perfectly nice and comfortable vehicle. However, it was a perfectly smooth test track where the vehicle’s ride qualities could not be tested.
Coupled with a 60-kilowatt-hour Lithium Ferro-Phosphate (LFP) battery pack and a promised range in excess of 500 kilometres, the MPV7 should tick all boxes and be a strong competitor, right? Ah, this gives me a segue into the second point I made at the start of this column. How many comfort features do you need in a car?
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Lack of comfort features
The VF MPV7 is a great vehicle in terms of driving and performance, but it severely lacks several comfort features. So, the trend of removing the instrument cluster by various carmakers continues with this vehicle. It is a trend that started with Tesla and is now even on the latest BMWs.
I’m not a fan of it because I would like to know how fast I’m going without glancing to the side, but this problem is exacerbated in this vehicle, which has a small ten-inch central display. And, it controls everything.
Living in an age of large 12-15-inch central displays, even larger in some cars, this appears pitifully tiny. The MPV7 doesn’t feature Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and as for comfort and lifestyle, it is far behind modern vehicles. There is no sunroof, and the lack of electric plus ventilated seats, wireless charging and a branded audio system felt odd.
Especially because the MPV7 will go up against the Kia Carens Clavis EV, and I drove the top-spec HTX+ variant of the Korean car, which, albeit smaller dimensionally, was loaded to the brim with the latest features. It boasts a double-screen setup along the dashboard, with each being 12.3 inches wide. It also features charging points in the third-row seats. The average Indian car buyer today wants all these features, after all, even vehicles like the new Hyundai Venue have a panoramic sunroof.
The MPV7, as tested, felt perfect as a taxi. Which is strange because VinFast is bringing an even more de-specced variant with no driving modes and smaller tyres, as the ‘Limogreen’, which they will sell to taxi operators and use when they potentially launch their own taxi operation. Now, maybe the MPV7 can be a price warrior, undercutting the likes of Kia and possibly even competing with top models of the Ertiga. But a lack of features means that customers will not come into your showrooms.
Or, as I noticed when visiting the VinGroup and all its various entities, this is a group that adapts and learns fast. VinFast cut its losses in the US, and while some laughed at the time, it was prescient, with the likes of Honda and Stellantis taking huge hits in the recent weeks. It appears likely that VinFast will learn from the feedback that came from the automotive media and, by the time they launch in India, have a variant with at least some of these features.
I genuinely hope that they do, because their vehicles clearly have potential and the Indian market needs more competition, especially for electric vehicles.
Kushan Mitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He tweets @kushanmitra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)