The Vietnam electric scooter market is on a roll, and market leader VinFast just had a record 2025. The homegrown brand delivered 406,453 scooters in the year. This was the year when things really came together for VinFast as the domestic electric scooter absolutely exploded. To put it in perspective, these sales numbers represent a 473% increase compared to 2024.
At 406,453 units, VinFast would be the largest non-Chinese electric two-wheeler brand in the world.
What is working for Vinfast?
Learning from its car division, VinFast’s scooter division started with the core idea of controlling the design and engineering of its products. For that, there has been a heavy lean on outside consultants, but VinFast has steadfastly stayed away from sourcing Chinese IPs. The first product, Klara, introduced in 2018, had a design from Pininfarina and engineering help from BOSCH.
Since then, VinFast has pursued an aggressive expansion of its product portfolio. The present portfolio consists of 10 model ranges with multiple variants and has battery options from Lead-acid to Li-ion. This allows the company to cover all model segments in the Vietnam market and also offer multiple product offerings in each segment.
Take, for example, the Vietnamese sub-49 kph segment, where riders are license-exempt. Targeted at teenagers and college-going students, VinFast has four offerings there with the Motio, Zgoo, Evo Lite, and Flazz. Honda has one, the ICON:e, launched in March 2025.
Within its product offerings, VinFast offers a mix of fixed, portable, and swappable batteries, with swapping and charging options to cover most of the ecosystem.
The range, comprising the Klara, Feliz, Vento, Evo, Evo Liyte, Theon, and Vero X, targets everything from the budget customer to the premium buyer.
Strong Focus on Design with Manageable Performance
One of the key aspects of VinFast scooters is that there is a strong focus on design & styling across the range. At the same time, not even the most premium machines go overboard with too much motor power, electronics, or large screen displays. Sure, there are features like smartphone connectivity, smartphone unlocking (Phone As A Key- PAAK), and eSIMs, but things are modest and functional. The focus is on getting the basics right, important in a market where the customers are used to high-quality ICE two-wheelers from Honda and Yamaha.
There is no chase for hollow paper specs either. The highest VinFast has a top speed of 99 kph from a 7.1 kW (peak) mid-drive motor.
In turn, there seems to be more emphasis on hardware and quality – Continental ABS, and LFP batteries.
There is also a focus on component sharing and common platforms across multiple products, keeping costs in check.
Being in the Right Geography Helps
At first glance, Vietnam does not seem the ideal market for mass electrification. The Two-wheeler Affordability ratio (TWAR) is 9.15 while the Fuel Affordability Ratio is 49.84. These are modest numbers, nowhere close to the highs of Africa. in simple terms, fuel is not so expensive that people would like to switch to electric. At the same time, two-wheelers are cheap enough, and replacing them with (arguably) more expensive E2Ws would be a challenge.
But Vietnam has one of the strongest regulatory supports for electrification anywhere in the world. The policy (created for VinFast?) provides extensive incentives for electric mopeds/scooters. E-mopeds are exempt from registration and road tax till Feb 2027. There is also a proposed USD 1000 incentive per vehicle, though not yet rolled out. At the city-level, both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) have extensive support for electrification.
Hanoi and HCMC are very densely populated cities with some of the highest two-wheeler densities in the world. While fuel and vehicle prices may not be an immediate challenge, air pollution is.
HCMC has announced a pilot to replace ICE motorcycles with electric two-wheelers in low-income households, supporting them through interest-free loans, scrapping incentives, and exemptions from VAT/ registration.
The capital city has set a target to convert all delivery vehicles and ride-hailing fleets to electric by 2030, with 80% to be achieved by 2027. That is next year, so momentum is strong. This would be a major impetus to E2Ws, and HCMC is deploying extensive charging infrastructure.
The capital city is also offering soft loans extensively at low interest rates to push E2W usage. By 2030, the city plans to convert the central areas to zero-emission zones, allowing only electric vehicles to enter.
The other big city, Hanoi, is also providing support to electric vehicle pilots and adapting electric two-wheelers in the city’s fleets and services. Importantly, Hanoi is restricting ICE two-wheelers from central areas, within Ring Road 1, to control emissions and air pollution from July this year. The net will spread wider, covering areas inside Ring Road 2 from 2028 onwards.
Weak Competition in Vietnam
Others have a perfect storm; VinFast has the perfect party.
With regulatory support, multiplied by TCO benefits, the Vietnamese market for E2Ws is growing fast. VinFast seems to be the only one best placed to win, as the competition is weak and still waking up.
Honda has just started moving with the CUV e:, the ICON e:, and the newly launched UV3. Of these, the CUV e: is tied to the Honda swapping network, and the UV3 is just entering showrooms. The ICON e: targets the same license-exempt market as the VinFast Motio, but the pricing is higher.
An early entry means that VinFast has a wider swapping network than anything Honda can set up in the near future.
Other competitors like Dat Bike are just about starting off in Vietnam. There are Pega and Anbico, but both rely on Chinese IP. Yadea and Niu have started as well, though there is considerable ground to cover.
What obviously helps VinFast is the backing from VinGroup, Vietnam’s largest conglomerate. That helps scale the charging and swapping operations faster than anyone else can.
