SEOUL, Jan. 11 (UPI) —<\/span> Vietnamese electric carmaker VinFast plans to launch autonomous vehicles this year and next, the company told UPI News Korea.<\/p>\n VinFest displayed five models last week during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including the VF8, which would start at $41,000, and the VF9 at $56,000. Those models are expected to roll out this year.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The startup’s team includes Chief Technology Officer Bae Hong-sang, a former executive at Samsung Electronics.<\/p>\n Bae said in an interview that VinFast is planning to launch Level 3 autonomous vehicles next year.\n<\/p>\n “Our VF8 and VF9 models – to be launched later this year – will be Level 2 models. Beginning late next year, Level 3 and Level 4 models will hit the market,” Bae said.<\/p>\n Level 2 models have limited hands-free capabilities, while Level 3 models still require a driver to be ready to take control in an emergency. Level 4 vehicles, however, do not require a driver behind the wheel.<\/p>\n Bae, who earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University, is regarded as an expert in autonomous driving. Previously, he developed driverless cars at General Motors and Faraday Future.\n<\/p>\n Bae said VinFast is exploring whether to produce battery cells in-house. Currently, South Korea’s Samsung SDI and LG Energy Solution provide battery cells to the company.\n<\/p>\n “We are already preparing to design and manufacture battery modules and battery packs. A discussion is underway whether to do the same for battery cells,” he said.<\/p>\n An assembly of battery cells forms a battery module of an electric vehicle, and multiple battery modules are called a “pack.”\n<\/p>\n VinFast was founded in 2017 in Hai Phong and released its first model in early 2019.<\/p>\n This year, the company announced its all-electric strategy, scrapping the production of cars powered by an internal combustion engine.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VinFast Chief Technology Officer Bae Hong-sang speaks during the Consumer Electronics Show last\u00a0 week in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of VinFast SEOUL, Jan. 11 (UPI) — Vietnamese electric carmaker VinFast plans to launch autonomous vehicles this year and next, the company told UPI News Korea. VinFest displayed five models last week during the Consumer Electronics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":746059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-746057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Vietnamese](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Vietnamese-electric-carmaker-VinFast-to-launch-autonomous-vehicles.jpg\" "\\"Vietnamese")
\n<\/div>\nVinFast Chief Technology Officer Bae Hong-sang speaks during the Consumer Electronics Show last\u00a0 week in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of VinFast<\/p>\n