Vietnam’s first homegrown automaker has a few familiar faces running the show. At the automaker’s helm is Jim Deluca, formerly General Motors’ executive vice president of global manufacturing, engineering and labor relations. He retired from the U.S. automaker in 2016, but VinFast will surely keep him busy.
VinFast is Vietnam’s first automaker, a new subsidiary of Vingroup. Deluca will serve as the automaker’s first CEO, which will build its first two cars based on BMW technology: the LUX A2.0 sedan and LUX SA2.0 crossover. Overseeing other facets of VinFast operations include more former GM brass. Deluca has named many on his team from GM’s former Holden manufacturing operations. Other executives once hailed from Ford and Fiat-Chrysler.
Specifically, VinFast’s vice president of manufacturing (Shaun Calvert), VP of engineering (Kevin Fisher), VP of planning and product management (Roy Flecknell), VP of quality (Mitch Thomas) and the automaker’s design director (David Lyon) all come from GM, Automotive News (subscription required) reported.
For the executives, VinFast is a fresh start. Vietnam’s standard of living is growing and consumer sentiment has begun pushing for a homegrown automaker. VinFast has made history by fulfilling said niche, and it’s partnering with many big names to ensure success. As mentioned, the first vehicles are based on BMWs, but the automaker will use GM technology to build a global small car sold under the VinFast brand in the future.
VinFast acquired the exclusive rights to distribute and sell Chevrolets in the country earlier this year, and GM also transferred ownership of the Hanoi manufacturing facility to the company. Other names involved with VinFast are all familiar: Germany’s ZF will supply the eight-speed automatic transmission and the first two cars’ designs were penned inside Pininfarina. Engineering called Magna Steyr home.
The automaker has the capacity to build 250,000 cars per year, but will enter a market where just 23 in 1,000 own a car. However, VinFast sees the tides changing.
Comments
Make Vietnam Great Again!
Actually, they already did that in 1975, right? Winners! They know how to win, right? They don’t let folks just pour in over their border do they? Even if those pouring in are wearing military green and coming off carriers, they STILL don’t let them stay, do they? And they know how to turn things around! Like air-dropped ordnance that fails to explode on the ground, like “secret” ammo-dumps, the Viets know how to use what they’re given and make it work for them! And they don’t take it from their “friends” either, like we take it from Canada and Germany, nope, they got the Chinese good at Lao Cai in 1979 (never heard about that Victory did ya? Because your Fox News never tells you about Commie-on-Commie, do they?) and they stopped the genocide in Cambodia too. Honorable!
Dang, the USA could really learn a lesson or two about WINNING from Vietnam, that’s for SURE.
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[Aside] – y’know, I taught American Jazz in Vietnam in 2000-2001, in a school for kids. The Vietnamese loved America. They thought America was the best country on earth. They HATED Russia because in 1976-77 the Russians had the Viets ship every last grain of Vietnam rice to Comintern in Moscow, and Moscow promised to send back what was “needed”, which (for people who know Russians) was an obvious bait-n-switch and of course Moscow never sent another grain back. The Vietnamese Famine of 1977 killed more, far more, Vietnamese than the American War ever did – look it up. And unlike the war, the famine killed all the children and grandparents as well. From that moment onwards Vietnam has carried a hatred of Russia that Americans will never understand. Vietnamese believe Americans conducted themselves with enough honor in war to deserve some respect now, if you see their museum for the American War in Hanoi you will see a respectful memorial for all the war-dead, just like Ataturk did after WW1. For America, the Viets will do business, teach their kids to respect, and move forward in cooperation, including rebuilding the consulate in Saigon (what a feat that was – in 1999 the Americans parked a carrier off the Mekong delta and helicoptered-in several shipping containers and welded them together that day. In 8 hours they went from a blank plot to a building with workers at their computers).
For Russia, the Viets won’t do business, won’t allow unsupervised meetings between officials, won’t allow military contacts, and specifically pursues multiple diplomatic partnerships which (Eisenhower-style) encircle the Russians and won’t allow them to dominate the Vietnamese sphere.
So once again – Dang, the USA could really learn a lesson or two about WINNING from Vietnam, that’s for SURE.
Thanks for that OT. We need to know this stuff that shows a side of our one-time adversaries. As you say, the Ataturk comments after that war has strengthened Australia’s ties with Turkey. Every Anzac Day hundreds of Australians go to Turkey for a ceremony to honour the dead from that war.