:My wife and I spent 2 months in Vietnam (late 2022) awaiting immigration papers to move to Japan where we now live.
We spent time in both Ho Chi Minh (former Saigon) and spent most of our time in Hanoi. My opinion is also informed by lengthy conversations with my brother who was an English school teacher in Ho Chi Minh for 10 years and recently left to retire in the U.S.
The word the story never mentions but is a huge component of transportation in Vietnam is "motocycle". In fact, it's easy to believe that 90 to 95% of vehicles on the road today in Vietnam are motocycles -- most of them sold by Honda.
If you ride the streets of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, there are a few taxis and private vehicles, but the city streets are "owned" -- big time -- by motorcycles.
Any market where electric cars will sell must first have a thriving market for ICE cars. But if you look at international stats, Vietnam is way down the list of motor vehicles per capita. See the Wiki statistics.
Motor vehicles per 1,000 people are shown below with a focus on Southeast Asia (for in-region comparisons):
America - 908 MV per 1,000 people
Italy - 755
Japan - 661
Malaysia - 542
South Korea - 526
Taiwan - 365
Thailand - 280
China - 221
Singapore - 149
Myanmar - 138
Philippines - 120
Hong Kong - 109
Indonesia - 82
Vietnam - 53
Cambodia - 27
Laos (not listed)
Papua New Guinea - 14
North Korea - 1 MV per 1,000 people
So if you're looking for "hot markets" for electric vehicles, Vietnam is pretty far down the checklist of likely winning markets.
The other thing to look at is infrastructure. Yes, Vietnam is still a communist country. My brother was afraid to put his money in a Vietnamese bank because they don't play by global banking rules. Tomorrow all your assets could be seized.
In Ho Chi Minh city we used to walk by the subway entrance to a planned advanced Japanese-built subway/train for the city. But apparently the project has been at a standstill for years. Meanwhile Taiwan, a far more advanced country has a high-speed rail system based on Japan's Shinkansen (bullet train) system.
Finally, Vietnam has severe public infrastructure problems, as is the case with all so-called "third world" nations. So if you think charging stations are hard to find in America...
For example, one reason my wife and I have an EV car and an ICE pickup is to give us some security in case the Dims mess up one energy supply -- my transportation needs can shift to the car of which I have good energy available. If the Dims make the power grid unstable here in Alabama like I hear it is in 3rd world California, fine, we'll drive the ICE pickup. If the Dims take us back to 2 years ago when we had gas shortages and gas was $5/gallon even here in Alabama, fine we have an EV.
If I lived under communist rule I'd probably all the more so want a gas vehicle and power vehicle to give me some flexibility. So I could see a Vietnamese family having both an EV bike and an ICE bike.
Vietnamese have LOTS of motorcycles.
Tens of millions. They are EVERYWHERE. All those people may be interested in an economical alternate, that does not crash so easily.
There may be a much larger market for economical electric cars here than you think.