Tesla confirms Vietnam entry to take on VinFast and its 36% market share

Tesla has started hiring in Vietnam, and one of its recruiters says the company is now “officially coming” to the country. The five open roles include a sales manager, a service manager, and a charging project developer.

It’s a tough market to walk into. VinFast, the local all-electric automaker, has sold roughly 36% of every new car in Vietnam this year, more than its next five competitors combined.

From a shell company to job postings

Tesla quietly registered Tesla Motors Vietnam LLC in Ho Chi Minh City on September 11, with about 77.7 billion dong (roughly $3 million) in charter capital and a business scope covering car imports, wholesale, and retail. Tesla never commented on it.

Now we have the first confirmation from someone inside the company. Ricky Ip, who recruits for Tesla, posted on X this morning:

The five openings are Sales Manager, Service Manager, HR Business Partner, Purchasing Manager, and Project Developer, Charging. That last one is the tell. You don’t hire someone to develop charging projects unless you plan to build Superchargers in the country.

Tesla has followed this playbook before in Southeast Asia. It went on a hiring spree in Thailand in September 2022 and opened orders there three months later. It started hiring in the Philippines in September 2024 and launched in early 2025. So a Vietnam launch in the next few months wouldn’t be a surprise.

There’s no word yet on pricing, models, or store locations. Oddly, the recruiting graphic features the next-generation Roadster, with fine print saying the vehicle is “for illustration purposes only.” Fair enough.

VinFast owns Vietnam

Tesla isn’t walking into an empty market. It’s walking into VinFast’s backyard.

VinFast delivered 177,697 cars in Vietnam through the first nine months of 2026, out of a national total of about 495,000. That’s about 36% of the entire car market, gas cars included. In September alone, it had 37.7% of the market.

Here’s how the year-to-date numbers stack up against the next brands:

• VinFast: 177,697
• Toyota: 53,978
• Hyundai: 35,412
• Mitsubishi: 31,932
• Ford: 30,353
• Kia: 23,461

Add up Toyota, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Ford, and Kia and you get 175,136. VinFast alone beat all five of them.

And it’s already passed its full-year 2025 volume with a quarter left to go. VinFast says September was its 25th straight month as Vietnam’s best-selling car brand.

The model mix tells you a lot about the market. The VinFast VF 3, a tiny two-door electric crossover that launched at under $13,000, is Vietnam’s best-selling vehicle so far this year. VinFast models held the top five spots in September.

The home-field advantages

VinFast builds its cars in Haiphong. Tesla would have to import everything, most likely from Giga Shanghai, and Vietnam kept passenger cars on its high-tariff list under the ASEAN-China free trade agreement.

Charging is another gap. VinFast’s sister company V-Green runs the country’s dominant charging network and announced plans this year to spend about $380 million on 99 ultra-fast charging stations. Third-party networks in Vietnam are still thin.

There is one thing working in Tesla’s favor. Vietnam just extended its registration fee exemption for battery-electric cars through the end of 2030, and that applies to imported EVs too.

And VinFast’s volume comes with an asterisk. A significant share of its deliveries go to GSM, the Xanh SM electric taxi and ride-hailing company founded by VinFast chairman Pham Nhat Vuong. VinFast has long relied on Vietnam for the bulk of its deliveries, which we pointed out when it delivered nearly 100,000 EVs in 2024.

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