An unproven Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer’s billion-dollar deal championed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) has crumbled in central North Carolina.
The deal struck in 2022 by Cooper saw the state commit $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to VinFast, a Vietnamese-based electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, as the two-term governor sought to implement Green New Deal policies in his last term in office. Cooper is now running for U.S. Senate against Republican nominee Michael Whatley.
At a scheduled monthly meeting on July 27, Chatham County commissioners terminated their end of the agreement, saying the company failed to meet performance obligations and project deadlines. Chatham County sits 35 miles west of the state capital of Raleigh.
In May, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, told media, “VinFast agreed to build a factory and create jobs for North Carolinians – it didn’t do either.” The attorney general filed the lawsuit on behalf of the state commerce department.
In 2022, Cooper announced the deal with great fanfare, saying at the time, “North Carolina is quickly becoming the center of our country’s emerging, clean energy economy. VinFast’s transformative project will bring many good jobs to our state, along with a healthier environment as more electric vehicles take to the road to help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
A slide deck prepared by the company promised it would be the “largest economic development project in North Carolina history” and produce 7,500 full-time jobs.
The company held a groundbreaking ceremony at the facility in 2023, but work at the site was consistently behind schedule, fueling questions for years about whether the company was committed to the deal. In addition to the delays at the site were terrible reviews of the company’s U.S. vehicles, with headlines such as “very, very bad” and another simply saying, “yikes.”
By 2024, the company said it was delaying the project based on a market slowdown despite the Biden administration’s electric vehicle tax credits as part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that sought to boost EV sales across the country.
Cooper’s history of backing the harmful Green New Deal policies includes executive orders directing “bold action on climate change and the transition to a clean energy economy” and advancing offshore wind energy projects in the Outer Banks. Military leaders flagged the offshore wind projects in 2023 over concerns the large turbines could interfere with pilot training operations.
That project was ultimately scrapped by Duke Energy earlier this year.
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