VinFast Wants to Sell Electric Buses in the US. First It Needs a US Factory
Certified deliveries are due in early 2028 through a bundled service deal with NexMove. Transit agencies spending federal money will need a US-built bus — and VinFast’s American plant is tied up in court.
VinFast plans to start delivering electric buses to US customers in the first quarter of 2028. The catch for the buyers that order the most buses — public transit agencies — is that federally funded purchases require a vehicle assembled in the United States, and VinFast has no US factory.
The Vietnamese automaker, which last month handed the top job to its founder's son as losses deepened, announced the plan on October 6 at the APTA TRANSform & EXPO in Chicago. Two buses badged EB 8 and EB 10 sat on its stand under a banner reading "Built for America."
A bus you subscribe to
VinFast won't be selling the buses directly. It has signed an initial agreement with NexMove, a joint venture between passenger transportation company Transportation Management Services and Zeem Solutions, which operates charging depots for commercial EV fleets.
NexMove will wrap the bus, charging, maintenance, and operations into a single contract, and says it intends to back that with a 97% uptime commitment. The companies describe this as a way to control the rollout rather than hand vehicles to operators and hope the infrastructure follows.
Before 2028, NexMove plans to station demonstration buses at Zeem's depots so fleet operators and agencies can inspect them. Those units are not certified for US service and are for evaluation only.
VinFast hasn't published US specifications or pricing, or said which models it will offer. As a rough guide, the European EB 8 it launched at Busworld in October 2025 is an 8-meter (26-foot) bus with a 359-kWh LFP battery, room for up to 60 passengers, and more than 290 km (180 miles) of range on the SORT 1 urban test cycle, according to the company. The EB 10 hasn't been detailed.
The Buy America problem
Under Federal Transit Administration rules, buses bought with federal transit money must go through final assembly in the United States and carry more than 70% domestic content by cost. A bus imported from Vietnam meets neither test.
Private customers such as airports, campuses, and corporate shuttle operators aren't bound by that rule, which makes them the more accessible early market. Unlike Chinese rivals facing the rules that keep BYD out of American showrooms, VinFast is free to sell here. To win transit agency orders, it has to build here.
NexMove's leadership acknowledges as much.
We look forward to working with VinFast toward U.S. manufacturing that meets Federal Transit Administration requirements, so public transit agencies can put these buses to work.
That was Paul Gioupis, Zeem's founder and CEO and a NexMove co-founder. Neither company has said where that manufacturing would happen, or when.
VinFast's one US manufacturing project offers little reassurance. The company announced a North Carolina plant in March 2022, promising 7,500 jobs and production by mid-2024. The state sued in May to take back the Chatham County site, and in a September court filing VinFast said it still intends to build but doesn't plan to begin construction until 2028, WRAL reported. That is the same year the first buses are due.
What VinFast does have
The company's argument is operating history. It says about 2,000 of its electric buses are in service in Vietnam, where it runs manufacturing, operations, and maintenance, and it began offering buses in Europe last year.
That experience counts for something with fleet managers. But the open questions are the ones that decide orders: price, the US model lineup, when demonstration units arrive, and where a compliant bus would be built. VinFast has answered none of them yet.
