Yahoo Autos Surprise, VinFast's VF8 EV Already Has A Recall
VinFast can’t seem to catch a break. After a disturbing and mostly scripted first drive in Vietnam, the second batch of EV crossovers finally made their way to the U.S. So far it’s been a disaster, with near universal panning of the VF8. Now it would seem the technical difficulties that some of our industry colleagues experienced on the first drive have been plaguing owner vehicles. The NHTSA has issued a recall for the VF8 mere weeks after owners have received their vehicles.
The issue surrounds the main infotainment display, which can randomly go blank while driving. In any other vehicle this wouldn’t be a big deal. But in a VF8, as with most other EVs, the main display not only shows vital vehicle information, it’s the only display in the whole vehicle. There is no display for the driver. If you need to know how much juice the battery has left or control the air conditioning, the center display is where it’s at.
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So far the NHTSA says that the problem has been documented 18 times. But the agency is estimating the problem is more widespread, with an estimated 1,263 VF8s affected. That’s broken down to 999 that are potentially dealing with the issue, 153 VF8 fleet vehicles and 111 customer vehicles, all affected by the issue.
Owners shouldn’t be too concerned, though — I mean aside from the other issues the VF8 has. The NHTSA says VinFast is rolling out a software update that should fix the issue. It’s scheduled to go live on May 25th with notification letters going out to owners by May 29th. While this all would be a minor issue for any other automaker, for a company trying to break into the U.S. market with a vehicle that has already drawn universal criticism from the press VinFast may not be able to shake an image for having problem plagued vehicles.
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