VinFast LUX SA2.0 SUV (2020)

As a subsidiary of Vingroup, Vietnam's largest privately-held business, VinFast has the resources and scalability to fulfil its ambition to become South East Asia's leading vehicle manufacturer, and a significant new player in the global automotive industry. Vingroup's brands were founded with a mission to strive 'for a better life for the Vietnamese people', and Vingroup wanted to build a proud car brand for the country that was stylish, premium and embodied the Vietnamese spirit, that would appeal beyond its domestic market, to the world. Its vision was to create cars with a strong Vietnamese identity that would represent the country - and be competitive - on the global automotive stage.

Vingroup had annual revenues in 2017 of 3.9 billion USD. The group, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is a leader in the Vietnamese construction and real estate sectors, and also has major interests in the country's education, healthcare, agriculture, tourism and consumer retail sectors.

Vietnam's economy is growing rapidly. Annual GDP per capita has accelerated in recent years to over 6.8% and is forecast to continue at 6.5% p.a. in the coming years. This positive economic outlook creates significantly higher potential for growth in passenger car ownership. Currently, it stands at around 23 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, but estimates suggest that ownership in Vietnam will soon rise to 50 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. For comparison, in Thailand and the US, these numbers stand at 204 per 1,000 and 790 per 1,000, respectively. The current car sales volume in Vietnam is 300,000 units per annum. That is forecast to triple to 900,000 units by 2025.

In parallel with the boom in car sales, Vietnam is also investing in significant roadbuilding programmes. Major development works are currently underway, many due for completion by 2020, by which time 21 highways are expected to have been built with a total length of nearly 6,500 km.

World-class Italian design flair, influenced by the Vietnamese people

The proud and energetic styling of VinFast's first two models were heavily influenced by the new company's progressive approach to design, and display a world-class design language developed in close partnership with the world-renowned Pininfarina design team in Italy.

In order to find a style that reflected the desires of the Vietnamese driver, VinFast did something no car brand has ever done before. First, it commissioned design sketches for a sedan and a SUV from four of the world's best car design studios - Italdesign Giugiaro, Pininfarina, Torino Design and Zagato. Then in October 2017, it put all 20 designs on its website and asked Vietnamese consumers to vote on which models they liked the most.

These Vietnamese consumers were excited to help determine the look of the first cars made expressly for them. With over 60,000 people voting for their favorite designs, the decision was clear; they chose designs for an SUV and a sedan both penned by celebrated Italian design house Italdesign Giugiaro.

Since then, VinFast has worked hard with Pininfarina to further develop the cars and deliver the winning designs - designs which are distinctively Vietnamese in character and style and exciting for an international audience, too.

One specific highlight of the debutant's design language is prominent at the front of both its new cars. The chrome 'V' emblem at the centre of the grille is confident and distinctive. To the right is a horizontal chrome element that combines with the LED daytime running lights to create an italicised F-motif, representing the second syllable of VinFast, and a unique asymmetric flourish. From the central 'V' emblem radiates the bold crease lines that run over the bonnet.

"The strong brand identity, enhanced by elegant lines and refined details, gives our cars several distinctive highlights," explains David Lyon, Director of Design at VinFast. "First and foremost, these emanate around the 'V' logo in the grille, which references the country of Vietnam, as well as the Vingroup and VinFast brands. In conjunction with Pininfarina, we have carefully sculptured each body line to express the natural beauty of Vietnam and the warm-hearted and dynamic characteristics of its people through a modern and world-class design language."

From a starting point of exceptional proportions, designers from VinFast and Pininfarina created timeless cars that each feature a long wheelbase and elegant, inspiring styling.

Contemporary and timeless, the designs are beautifully balanced, with a sleek profile created by a long bonnet and cab-rearward stance. They exhibit an emotional dynamism through taught and lean surfacing created by carefully sculpted convex and concave forms. Exuding a sense of technological advancement, complex lighting is in layers at the front and in distinctive block-form combination modules at the rear, each incorporating bold LEDs for a very modern style.

LUX A2.0 Sedan

Thesleek sedan has a powerful, dynamic stance and a mixture of curved and concave surfaces that create a sense of elegance and desirable prestige.

It is defined by exceptionally balanced and harmonious proportions. The long bonnet visually extends the front of the car, with the sleek minimalistic headlights drawing the eye to the corners, while the roofline stretches rearward to create a cab rearward, sleek elegance. The C-pillar is elongated to visually continue the roofline rearwards, with the rear glass raked at a fast angle.

The chrome elements and sleek, modern design give the car a prestigious appeal that enrich the sense of premium. A lower chrome line runs along the length of the body side through to the rear to accentuate the lean proportions. Higher up the bodyside is a sharp, flowing line that enhances the impression of elegance and creates a sense of forward momentum.

The aerofoil splitter at the lower edge of the front bumper improves aerodynamic performance - optimised through wind tunnel testing - as air is forced into the intake and expelled ahead of the wheel arches to reduce drag-inducing turbulence around the wheels.

LUX SA2.0 SUV

The SUV is muscular and robust in appearance, with design elements adding to the strong SUV impression, yet still retaining a lithe, sporty look.

At the front, the LUX SA2.0's imposing bumper guard was developed to be very sculptural and to incorporate cleanly the headlight layout, air intakes and fog lights. The lighting elements create a strong SUV style, vertically stacked from the low-positioned fog lights up to the headlights half-way up, capped by the daytime running lights that flow out from the VinFast logo.

As with the LUX A2.0 sedan, the bold front-end design ensures the 'V' and 'F' of the VinFast brand is a key focal point. Contrasting surfaces and materials subtly enhance the clean, flowing lines, and the sheet metal is juxtaposed with black elements in the front grille to lighten the front end and enhance the sporty character of the SUV. Visual drama in the front is further enhanced by chrome brightwork and highly sculptured gloss black elements that together project a sense of luxury. Meanwhile, the headlights, fog lights and air intakes are presented in a contrasting matte black surround, to heighten the sense of solidity and structure.

The new SUV's aesthetic appeal is strengthened with sculptural, flowing lines that create a sense of forward-leaning aspect, giving the car a sense of dynamic power. This is a seven passenger, three-row SUV that still feels very compact and sporty.

The deep body side and shallow glasshouse are carefully proportioned to visually lower the profile and increase the dynamic appearance. The single chrome line across the bottom of the glasshouse sweeps up the C-pillar, accentuating the dynamic lines. Further chrome brightwork around the windows adds to the sense of luxury and creates visual drama, while the striking 'floating' roof at the D-pillar adds even more athleticism to the side profile.

Calm, rewarding interior

The inspiration for VinFast's interiors was Vietnam itself. The design team understood that finding a way to express the Vietnamese personality and broader cultural traits was vital, so they could build a car that would emotionally fulfil the desires and aspirations of Vietnam's motorists.

Clean lines and quality materials make the interior of VinFast models a tranquil and rewarding place to be and reflective of a Vietnamese aesthetic. The exterior of the LUX A2.0 sedan and LUX SA2.0 SUV define the character of the cars, and VinFast's design team have echoed that character in the interior spaces of each model.

The focus is on providing uncluttered simplicity and creating a relaxing ambience. VinFast wants this to be a place that drivers feel they can get away from everything: the drive to work and journey home should be the best part of the day.

The lines are very clean and simple, and the control surfaces feature very few buttons. For VinFast, creating a clean, cutting-edge user interface was essential. Technology is vital - Vietnam is a smartphone country: more than 80 per cent of the population use smartphones, a higher proportion of the population than in other countries including the USA. And the large 10.4-inch touchscreen dominating the centre console presents a very familiar and welcoming interface for a tech-savvy population. The large configurable touchscreen is the control hub of the car and features simple, intuitive navigation and menus.

The design team tasked themselves with creating a fresh new look for the interface without compromising its usability. The goal was to simplify features whenever possible and to make the mood and the feeling of the interface as distinctly Vietnamese as possible.

VinFast has created a system to incorporate a more human element for VinFast cars. It uses fewer buttons, prioritizing the hierarchy of functions logically and uses a simple color palette that is easy to read.

The result is a UX design that is both simple and elegant. The homepage, for example, has just three icons for top level access, plus a display showing the climate control status in the car. This home menu is contextual with just three large buttons for phone connectivity navigation and audio. The sub-level menus below this - including for the phone and the audio and even the navigation system - owe far more to contemporary smartphone design in terms of both aesthetic and function than perhaps anything yet seen in automotive UX de-sign. Users even swipe down for shortcuts in the same way that you would using an Android or Apple phone.

This element of personalization is part of an overall aesthetic designed to connect emotion-ally with local consumers.

In addition to the centre console touchscreen, a prominent seven-inch colour driver information display is set in the centre of the instrument binnacle, flanked by an analogue dial on each side. The layered form of the instrument panel - as with other elements of the interior styling lines - was inspired by the Vietnamese countryside.

The subtle presence of technology in the cabin is further complemented by ambient lighting strips integrated into the horizontal interior trim lines across the dash and doors.

Designers spent significant time getting the proportions right, with optimised ergonomics and clear lines of sight dictating much of the interior layout.

Quality is a primary focus for VinFast throughout the car, and this is especially evident in the selection of materials and the hand-crafted finish. Everything the occupants touch and feel in the car is authentic - if it looks like aluminium it is aluminium; if it looks like wood it is wood. To maintain quality and consistency of material grades and grains, a single supplier - Faurecia - has been appointed to supply all interior parts. Its commitment to achieving the required level of quality and finish is evident in the fact that most surfaces are hand-wrapped and custom-stitched.

Creating world-class products

VinFast is working with world-leading design, engineering and component businesses to create the first mainstream volume cars to be developed and built in Vietnam.

Kevin Fisher, Vice President of Engineering at VinFast, said: "Our partnership strategy will enable us to achieve two crucial engineering imperatives - quality and timing. We will meet the world-class engineering and quality benchmarks we set for ourselves to ensure we deliver cars with international standards in safety, reliability, refinement and styling. And we will do so having dramatically shortened the timeframe - to less than two years - to bring our first cars to market."

The company is pioneering a homegrown car manufacturing industry, with a clear aim to build sophisticated vehicles to internationally-recognised standards of quality, durability, driving dynamics and in-car features.

VinFast and its vehicle engineering partners are developing two world-class cars half the usual period taken to develop a new car. To ensure the ambitious programme timing could be achieved without compromising quality, VinFast chose the leading experts in their fields.

Over 400 engineers from leading vehicle engineering specialist, Magna Steyr, are developing a new platform for each of VinFast's inaugural models. The Austrian consultancy is responsible for integrating newly-developed vehicle systems, latest-generation ECU technologies from Bosch, and a new cutting-edge electrical architecture. This extensive new platform engineering programme incorporates patents and know-how licenced from a premium European OEM.

The new platforms incorporate extensive use of mixed materials including the latest generation of hot-stamped ultra-high strength steels. Testing is being undertaken using nearly 300 prototype development cars in Vietnam and in Europe.

Underpinning both cars will be an ultra-rigid, unitary chassis-body structure. Each structure has been honed to have high natural frequencies, which provide resistance to vibrations and which have been engineered to manage torsion and bending forces to deliver greater control over vehicle dynamics.

The suspension on both the new VinFast LUX A2.0 and LUX SA2.0 is independent all round, comprising a double-wishbone front axle with double-pivot lower arms and coil springs, and at the rear a five-joint multi-link axle and a tubular anti-roll bar.

The chassis architecture is the most significant element of VinFast's efforts to match European levels of driving quality and refinement, with a keen focus on world-class dynamics and ride compliance. It also provides excellent crash protection, thanks to a strong and rigid passenger cell, and crumple zones at the front and rear. Dual front, side and curtain airbags on all models complement this high level of passive safety, while Active Rollover Mitigation technology is also included.

For development of the turbocharged 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder gasoline engine that will power both the LUX A2.0 and LUX SA2.0, VinFast partnered with the Austrian-headquartered AVL. The engine - again, benefitting from licensed patents and know-how - uses a twin-scroll turbocharger, and a newly applied valvetrain. The variable valve-timing system reduces pumping losses to a level that matches that of premium-marque engines.

Control mechanisms for the powertrain - which will also feature stop-start technology and a specifically-developed variable valvetrain system - have been developed with Bosch and AVL.

VinFast will offer the petrol engine with two power outputs - 130 kW (176 PS) and 170 kW (231 PS). Buyers of the LUX A2.0 sedan will have a choice of outputs, while the LUX SA2.0 SUV will be available only with the higher power output. In each case, the engine will be paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission from specialist ZF, featuring a modified bell housing and crank case. The LUX SA2.0 is also equipped with a torque transfer case from Borg Warner to provide optional four-wheel drive capability as an upgrade over the standard rear-drive set-up.

The cars will offer impressive performance. The LUX A2.0 targets acceleration from 0-100 km/h in 8.9 seconds with the 130 kW engine, and in 7.1 seconds for the 170 kW power unit. The LUX SA2.0 SUV with rear-wheel-drive will aim to achieve 0-100 km/h in 8.9 seconds, and just 0.2 seconds slower with all-wheel-drive.

The driveability of the new VinFast sedan and SUV has been honed with technology called AVL-DRIVE. This assesses characteristics of a car's driving experience and can record data to produce a model for the optimum setup, based on feedback from a series of dynamic on-road driving tests. VinFast was able to use AVL-DRIVE to analyse what levels of launch and in-gear responsiveness a large panel of Vietnamese drivers preferred, and then use the results to develop specific characteristics for the production models.

VinFast and AVL's assessment programme found that the desires of Vietnamese drivers appear to closely match those of European markets, though with an even firmer preference for a powerful and smooth torque response from the car, without needing to downshift. A similar 'customer clinic' programme was undertaken in conjunction with Magna Steyr to help calibrate data points for the ride and handling set-up.

Environmental considerations had a significant influence over the vehicle engineering programme. VinFast will be pioneering sophisticated emissions controls in its home market, employing a three-way catalyst with closed-loop fuel control. This emissions control system is common in European markets but represents a significant step up from the standards currently in Vietnam. VinFast cars will meet Euro 5 emissions standards in a market and region that is currently regulated under Euro 4.

While the new cars are being built in Vietnam, and are initially aimed at the domestic market, safety testing is nevertheless being carried out in both Vietnam and Europe. This programme will ensure that VinFast's cars far exceed the current safety standards in Vietnam. The company is targeting a five-star rating for both its sedan and SUV in ASEAN NCAP testing.