Almost all Chinese electric car models coming to Vietnam have discounts, even up to hundreds of millions of dong. Accordingly, from late 2023 until now, many Chinese car brands in Vietnam have announced price reductions to attract customers, with some models discounted up to hundreds of million Vietnamese dong.
The Haval H6 is considered one of the pride of the Chinese domestic car industry with the highest sales figures among domestic models, even consistently ranking among the top-selling models in China.
Introduced to the Vietnamese market since August 2023, just two months after its launch, the Chinese Haval H6 model has been discounted by up to 244 million Vietnamese dong by the manufacturer, not including a maintenance package worth 50 million dong. The new selling price of the car is 852 million dong (previously listed at 1.096 billion dong).
As an example, with the MG brand, the distributor and dealerships have had several rounds of discounts on the brand’s models since December 2023.
For instance, MG dealerships have collectively reduced prices by over 150 million Vietnamese dong for the C-size crossover model, the RX5. The STD version saw a reduction of 159 million, from 739 million to 580 million dong. The LUX version decreased by 139 million, from 829 million to 690 million dong. At other dealerships, prices have also been adjusted downwards by 100 to 130 million dong depending on the location. Thus, from a model initially priced similarly to the Mazda CX-5, the new price of the MG RX5 is now even lower than that of the Hyundai Creta standard version (B segment).
Another model from the MG brand undergoing significant discounts is the C-segment sedan, MG5. The manual transmission version has been reduced by 50 million dong to 349 million dong, while the automatic version has seen a substantial reduction of 115 million dong to 408 million dong, bringing the price of the car in line with A-segment models.
Similarly, the MG ZS – a competitor of the Hyundai Creta or Kia Seltos – has also been discounted by around 100-120 million dong, bringing the price down to 440-520 million dong.
In particular, the affordable electric car model from China but assembled in Vietnam, the Wuling Mini EV, has been offered for sale since June 2023, with the price range announced at that time being from 239 to 279 million dong, a price point that consumers at that time criticized as too high.
The Wuling Mini EV is regarded as one of the world’s top-selling electric cars. However, in reality, after a few months of being on sale in Vietnam, the number of cars delivered to consumers was not substantial. After a while, the manufacturer announced a price reduction of around 40 million dong, bringing the listed price of the car below 200 million dong.
At the end of April 2024, the Wuling Mini EV continued to experience its deepest price reduction since its launch to date. The standard version now has a price starting from only 189 million dong. The total reduction amounts to 50 million dong. However, nearly a year after being on the market, the actual sales volume of the Hongguang MiniEV also did not meet expectations.
Data revealed from the annual shareholder meeting business report of TMT Motors – the distributor of Wuling vehicles in Vietnam – shows that by the end of 2023, this company had only sold 591 electric vehicles of the Wuling Mini EV model to the market. The actual sales reached only 100 vehicles per month, equivalent to about 10% of TMT Motors’ sales target in the initial period.
It’s easy to see that most models manufactured or assembled from China often experience significant price reductions shortly after their launch. For example, the Beijing V7 model was initially priced at over 700 million dong but dropped to around 600 million dong a few months later. Similarly, the Baic X55 model (originally priced at 528 million dong) decreased to over 420 million dong after a few months, reducing by more than 100 million dong.
The luxury car brand Hongqi (Red Flag) from China also introduced two products, the Hongqi H9 hybrid (priced from 1.5 to 2.7 billion dong) and the all-electric SUV E-HS9 (priced from 2.7 to 3.6 billion dong), which had to be adjusted downwards by several hundred million dong to over 1 billion dong after a few months.
Chinese electric vehicles continue to enter the Vietnamese market in 2024
There’s a current trend where alongside continuous price reductions of used cars to stimulate consumer demand, a wave of new cars from China is also making its way into Vietnam.
Following notable names like the Wuling Hongguang MiniEV, Haval H6, Haima 7X, or Lynk & Co 09… the Vietnamese car market in 2024 is forecasted to continue to welcome a “Chinese car wave”.
One example is Chery. The vehicle lines distributed to Vietnamese customers by this Chinese giant will soon belong to two sub-brands, Omoda and Jaecoo. Initially, the company will complete procedures to introduce 4 models, including Omoda 5 (a B-segment CUV), Omoda S5, S5 GT (positioned in the mid-size SUV/crossover group), and Jaecoo 7 (B+ segment crossover). Recently, the Chery Group has signed a joint venture agreement with the Geleximco Group to invest in a new car manufacturing plant under a new brand, in Hung Phu Industrial Zone, Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province.
Meanwhile, BYD will soon distribute its first model (likely the Atto 3) from mid-2024. Additionally, there are indications that BYD has plans to build an assembly plant in Phu Tho.
Wuling, distributed by TMT Motors, plans to introduce two more new models, both from the SGMW group: Baojun Yep and Wuling Bingo. Haima is introducing the 8S model positioned in the C-size SUV segment, competing with the Mazda CX-5. Haval promises to bring the Haval Jolion (in the B-SUV segment) expected in Q2/2024.
Apart from the two models currently distributed, the Hongqi (Red Flag) car brand, according to some sales consultants, has introduced the Hongqi HS5 to Vietnam and has started accepting deposits.