Slow Charging Nightmare
One of the biggest pain points customers have when buying into the EV lifestyle is the battery charging time. With EV adoption still somewhat limited, automakers have been working to address this by offering more EVs that can charge quickly.
One brand, though, seems to have dropped the ball in this regard – VinFast has been slapped with a class action lawsuit relating to charging times of the VF 8 EV.
Ronan Glon
VinFast VF 8 24-hour Charging Issue
A report by Car Complaints states that some VinFast VF 8 owners are experiencing catastrophically slow charging times, with some reaching 24 hours to fully charge. The issue apparently affects the VF 8 AWD variants, and not the Eco ones.
The two named plaintiffs are Gil Abrahem Swigi and Joseph Mizrahi, who brought up the suit after both leased a 2024 VinFast VF 8 Plus AWD EV. Both vehicles were leased under the brand’s claim that the VF 8 AWD charges at “industry standard speeds,” but the owners now say the charging speed is unsatisfactory.
An excerpt from the lawsuit highlights: “All persons or entities in the United States who, within four (4) years prior to the filing of this complaint, purchased or leased a VinFast VF 8 Plus AWD vehicle that failed to charge at the advertised wattage rate (typically 6.6kW or more), resulting in materially longer charging times than represented by VinFast.”
The VinFast VF 8 AWD comes with an 87.7 kWh battery pack. The automaker claims that the VF 8 should support Level 2 or higher charging speeds, which are around 6.6 kW or higher.
In the suit, it says the plaintiffs’ affected units are only capable of charging at 2 kW, which means it takes a full 24 hours to fully charge. VinFast also claims the VF 8 charges at 32 amps, but due to supposed software defects, the SUVs shut down, which stops charging.
The amps issue has become so bad that the plaintiffs “must manually lower the amps to 19 or below to prevent the charging process from stopping. But this means the charging speed is reduced by nearly 40%.” It has come to a point where the vehicle shuts down without warning, causing the plaintiffs to either wake up in the middle of the night to restart charging or wake up to an unusable car.
No Solution in Sight
VinFast, which has yet to introduce a new set of EVs this year, is apparently trying to resolve the issue affecting the VF 8 EVs, but both plaintiffs still claim that charging times are too slow, even after multiple repairs. This has forced them to buy expensive charging equipment to improve charging speed.
The latest court action states that the judge halted the class action suit after VinFast claimed that both plaintiffs had signed valid arbitration agreements when they leased their VF 8 EVs.
Ronan Glon
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