Not So Fast: The Mysterious, Tangled Story Of Vinfast's Shock Exit

It’s march 25, 2021, and Kevin Yardley is talking to Wheels via computer link from VinFast’s headquarters in the Vietnamese city of Hai Phong.

- Bruce Newton

A mop of black hair, a big smile and lots of enthusiasm are signatures of the former Holden and General Motors exec, who established a technical centre for the ambitious start-up in Port Melbourne in 2019 and then championed the purchase of the Lang Lang proving ground in 2020, creating or preserving over 100 auto industry jobs.

For more than an hour, VinFast’s product development chief expansively answers questions about the company and his involvement with it, dives into detail about the future product roll-out and explains the core role Australian automotive engineers will play in it.

The chances of VinFast eventually selling its cars in Australia seem strong. Yardley even pondered the prospects of VinFast reviving vehicle manufacturing in Australia.

“Anything is possible,” he told Wheels. “What I have found at VinFast is if it makes business sense, anything can happen.”

It was exciting stuff. It was the promise of renewed automotive relevance for Australia in the wake of the 2016-17 shutdown trauma and the axing of the Holden brand in 2020.

But just six weeks later the news broke that Yardley had left VinFast and the Port Melbourne technical centre was being closed. Dozens of staff– our sources say at least 88 – were to be offered the chance to relocate to Vietnam or be retrenched.

Some had only just started and many of those getting the bad news were former Holden employees for whom all this was painfully familiar.

The silver lining is that Lang Lang survived the cull.

Only after prodding from Australian motoring media did VinFast offer any explanation for its actions.