VinFast's U.S. Plan B: Green SM Launches an All-Electric Taxi Fleet in Los Angeles
Vietnam's Green SM opened bookings in LA on October 13 with VinFast VF 8s and full-time drivers, as VinFast's own U.S. retail sales stay in the hundreds.
A Vietnamese ride-hailing operator has started selling rides across Los Angeles in VinFast VF 8 electric SUVs, with its own salaried drivers behind the wheel. Green SM says Los Angeles is its first market in North America, and, if the reported fleet numbers hold, the launch puts more VinFasts on American roads at once than the brand's dealers sold in the entire first half of 2026.
Bookings opened on October 13, according to the company's announcement. Riders can order a car through the Green SM app, call a hotline, or flag one down on the street, and the company lists airport transfers among its services. The move lands a week after VinFast said it wants to sell electric buses in the US as well, another route into the market that doesn't depend on individual car buyers.
The release doesn't give a fleet size. The Los Angeles Times reported that Green SM is starting with 500 VF 8s that it owns and maintains itself, plus 500 drivers hired as full-time W-2 employees rather than the independent contractors Uber and Lyft rely on under California's Proposition 22. Per the same report, the cars cover Los Angeles County and reach south into Orange County, but they don't yet have clearance to pick up at LAX.
Why a taxi fleet, and why now
VinFast's retail story in the US has been a slow one. Trade reports put the brand's American sales at fewer than 400 cars in the first half of 2026, InsideEVs noted, citing Automotive News data. Against that backdrop, a single fleet order of several hundred cars in one metro area is a meaningful share of everything VinFast has delivered in the country.
The timing is pointed. On the day the launch coverage spread, VinFast published its second-quarter results: 70,085 EV deliveries worldwide, up 96 percent year over year, with only about 11 percent of them outside Vietnam, and a net loss from continuing operations of about $1.24 billion. VinFast also disclosed that around 6 percent of its EV deliveries went to related parties, which is where Green SM fits in.
Green SM is the consumer brand of GSM, the taxi and ride-hailing company founded by Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong, who also controls VinFast. Both companies went through a September leadership reshuffle that put members of the Vuong family in top roles at each. Green SM's announcement says the US service pairs VinFast's vehicles with its own operating know-how, but it doesn't say whether the cars were bought, leased, or supplied on other terms. At VinFast's current US list price of $40,400 for a base 2027 VF 8, 500 cars would represent about $20 million at retail.
The playbook is a familiar one at home. Green SM started in Vietnam in 2023 with VinFast cars and has since expanded to Laos, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Kazakhstan, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The company says it has logged about 850 million rides and nearly 3.7 billion miles (6 billion km) across those markets.
Up against Uber, Lyft, and a robotaxi
Los Angeles is a crowded place to start. Uber and Lyft dominate app-based rides, and Waymo has been open to the public in the city since late 2024, one of the 15 metros where its driverless cars now operate. Green SM is betting on the opposite of the robotaxi pitch: a human employee, trained by the company, in a car the company owns.
Fares scale with time and distance, and Christopher Walker, who runs operations for Green SM in the US, told the Los Angeles Times that pricing will be competitive with Uber Comfort. To seed demand, new customers get 50 percent off their first five rides, capped at $12 per trip, plus a free Green Pass membership with 10 vouchers a month worth 30 percent off, up to $10 each.
"We aim to build trust with customers, drivers and local communities, one journey at a time," said Hoang Thanh Hang, Green SM's US chief executive.
What the company hasn't said is how fast it intends to grow beyond Los Angeles, when it expects airport access, or what a typical fare will cost once the introductory discounts run out. For VinFast, the fleet is a test with a clear question attached: whether putting a few hundred VF 8s in front of millions of riders does more for the brand than its dealer network has.
