Story: Quynh Thuong
Photos: Tonkin, Shutterstock
With an electric vehicle, running out of power involves more than a brief stop. What will it take to build a comprehensive and reliable charging network?
When buying his first car, Mr. Phan Dung, 30, from Nghe An, spent considerable time choosing between a Toyota Yaris Cross and a VinFast VF 6. Although electric vehicles offered several advantages, his regular trips between Hanoi and Nghe An, as well as journeys into mountainous areas, raised concerns about charging-station availability. In the end, he chose the Toyota Yaris Cross.
His decision reflects a question emerging alongside the rapid adoption of electric vehicles: where can drivers charge when the battery runs low? In cities, charging stations may be available in residential areas, shopping malls, parking lots, and petrol stations. Farther from urban centers, however, the distance between stations becomes an important consideration for buyers. As more electric vehicles take to the roads, expanding the charging network is becoming increasingly urgent.
Finding somewhere to charge
For EV drivers, the question is not simply how many charging stations there are. A station with chargers that are difficult to access, already occupied, or out of service is of little use when a driver needs to recharge. What matters is how many functioning chargers are available when users need them.
A network may have tens of thousands of charging ports, but if most are concentrated in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and other urban centers while interprovincial routes and more remote locations remain underserved, significant gaps in charging access will persist.
This presents a challenge for foreign automakers seeking to expand in Vietnam. BYD has advantages in product range and technology, while Tesla has also shown signs of entering the market. Yet when buyers remain concerned about charging access, competitive pricing and brand strength may not be enough to turn interest into purchases.
According to PVOIL, the company currently operates more than 400 charging stations with nearly 2,300 chargers nationwide. V-Green says it operates around 150,000 EV charging ports across 34 provinces and cities. Charging infrastructure is expanding rapidly, but charger numbers alone do not tell the whole story. Location, charging capacity, operating status, and the ability to meet peak-hour demand matter just as much.
Unlike petrol stations, which can serve many vehicles in a short period, EV charging stations require vehicles to occupy both a charger and a parking space for longer periods. If one charging session takes around an hour, a charger operating continuously throughout the day could theoretically serve no more than 24 vehicles. In practice, the figure is likely to be lower because of waiting times, vehicles remaining parked after charging, and technical issues.
VinFast reported the delivery of 154,073 electric cars in Vietnam during the first eight months of the year. Every additional EV on the road creates greater demand for charging capacity, not only in cities but also along interprovincial routes and in areas farther from major urban centers.
Who will build the charging stations?
Building charging infrastructure requires more than land and equipment. Investors must also consider electricity capacity, how long vehicles occupy charging bays, and, most importantly, whether enough customers will use them to recover the investment. The question, therefore, is not only how many stations to build, but also who will finance them.
Automakers have a clear incentive to invest in or partner with charging networks to support vehicle sales. Charging operators generate revenue from electricity, service fees, franchising, or revenue-sharing arrangements. Petrol retailers can use existing sites, while dealerships, apartment developers, shopping malls, and parking operators may also participate. As a result, the market is developing through multiple models, from automaker-funded networks and dealership installations to third-party operators.
Behind every charger lies an investment equation. A fast DC charging station may require billions of VND in capital, but if it sits idle for much of the day, revenue may not cover land costs, depreciation, grid connection, staffing, and maintenance.
This creates a familiar market dilemma: when EV numbers remain low, charging stations struggle to break even, and investors hesitate to expand. Yet slow infrastructure development, in turn, makes consumers more reluctant to buy electric cars.
To break this cycle, businesses are looking for ways to share resources and make better use of existing infrastructure. One example is the establishment of an open energy infrastructure company by Petrolimex, Xuan Cau Holdings, and Selex Motors to develop EV charging stations and battery-swapping stations for electric motorcycles.
Under another model, V-Green has announced a VND10 trillion investment plan to develop 99 ultra-fast charging stations in 2026, with each station designed for up to 100 charging guns rated at 150kW. If all operated simultaneously at nominal capacity, a single station could require around 15MW of instantaneous charging power.
This shows that developing charging infrastructure is not simply a race to install more equipment. It is also a race for land, capital, customers, and access to sufficient electricity.
The power grid bottleneck
According to the Electricity Authority under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam could have around 1 to 1.6 million electric cars and 8 to 13 million electric motorcycles by 2030. Electricity demand for transport is projected at around 3.1 to 5.6 billion kWh per year, equivalent to approximately 0.68 to 1.1% of total commercial electricity consumption.
The greater concern, however, may not be total electricity consumption but power demand at specific times and in particular locations.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade estimates that if around 100,000 electric cars were fast-charging simultaneously at 60 to 120kW, instantaneous charging demand could reach 6 to 12 GW. Pressure could therefore become concentrated on medium- and low-voltage grids, particularly in areas with high densities of charging stations.
For example, an apartment building designed before EVs became widespread may not have been planned to support hundreds of vehicles charging at the same time. Adding charging stations can therefore require upgrades to internal electrical capacity, parking arrangements, cabling, protection equipment, and fire-safety systems.
Consumers need convenience. Investors need sufficient customer demand to recover their capital. The electricity sector needs enough capacity to serve the additional load. In the years ahead, the market’s key bottleneck will therefore not simply be how many electric vehicles are sold, but how many charging points can actually serve users in the right place, at the right time, and with sufficient efficiency to support further investment.
