VinFast's CES 2024 pickup concept is absolutely Wild
If it makes production, the Vietnamese automaker's electric truck could be the segment's first midsize product
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As further proof Vietnamese automaker VinFast considers North America its primary market, the surprise of this year’s CES nerd-fest is the company’s VF Wild pickup truck concept. And, like the rest of the company’s lineup — at least that part of its lineup that it sends to our shores — the Wild will be battery-powered.
Unfortunately, VinFast is not releasing any information on its electric configuration, so we don’t know how many kilowatt-hours of lithium-ion it will have on board, how far it will be able to go on one charge, or how fast it will scoot to 100 kilometres an hour.
What we do know is that it’s 5,324 millimetres (209.6 inches) long and 1,997 mm (78.6 inches) wide, which makes it a smidge bigger than a Ford Maverick, but significantly smaller than the Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, and, of course, the Tesla Cybertruck, which would, assuming the company’s promise that it is destined for production, make it the first mid-sized battery-powered truck in the land.
Mid-sized it may be, but VinFast says the Wild will boast the largest bed in the segment, mainly as the result of a “flexible” configuration which uses a power-folding Chevrolet-Avalanche-like mid-gate, as well as automatically folding rear seats, to stretch the bed length from five to a class-leading eight feet at the touch of a button. There’s also a panoramic glass roof and digital side mirrors on offer (this last “to improve aerodynamics,” says the press release). Whether everything we see will make it to production is still up in the air; the Wild, at least the one unveiled at CES 2024, is, after all, a prototype. Showgoers at the Montreal Auto Show will have the chance to see the Wild up close as it is expected to be at the show.
VinFast hasn’t exactly set the North-American auto market on fire. Sales of its first two products — the VF 8 and VF 9 SUVs — have been tepid, and initial reviews of their performance ambivalent. Interestingly, the company did not turn to a North American studio for this most important rendering. Instead, it’s Australian design firm Gomitiv that spent 8,000 hours crafting the “Fluid Dynamism” that the company hopes will turn the Wild into “a force of nature.” I’ll leave it up to keener truckers than I to decide if it’s succeeded. The “suicide” doors, however, are an eye-catching feature.
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