Getting into global trends early, one way or another, is an ideal way to find lucrative long-term investment wins — but it’s certainly easier said than done. Electric vehicle (EV) makers have massive upside, but come with equally massive risk. EV automakers that focus just on EVs are young companies, often burning through cash and trying to build brands and scale while markets throw curveballs like removing EV tax credits and implementing automotive tariffs.
Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN) and Lucid Motors (NASDAQ: LCID) both have some positive momentum in addition to their risks, but VinFast Auto (NASDAQ: VFS) should make investors think twice.
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As the global roadways begin to fill with EVs, it offers investors more growth than the historical automotive markets have. Global EV sales are increasing and expected to grow at a 25% clip annually through 2030.
Rivian and Lucid, while still unprofitable for investors, have both taken significant strides in their business. Rivian has worked diligently and impressively to reverse significant gross profit losses and achieved its first full-year gross profit in 2025 — reversing the prior year’s $1.2 billion gross profit loss. It’s currently launching its R2, which will open the doors to a broader, more price-sensitive market.
Lucid is a step behind its rival Rivian, but has worked through a growing history of production speed bumps to launch and accelerate the production — even if more slowly than anticipated — of its Gravity SUV. In fact, this improved production has paved the way for Lucid to post eight consecutive quarters of record deliveries.
VinFast, on the other hand, is a much more complicated potential EV investment. The Vietnamese automaker dominates its home market, has the backing of an uber-wealthy founder and parent company, and by all accounts has state-of-the-art manufacturing. The EV maker has aggressively and expensively pushed international expansion, including into the U.S., but losses continue to mount with little evidence that it will turn around.
Despite VinFast’s fourth-quarter losses widening and costs rising, the automaker is committed to resuming construction at its North Carolina factory in 2026, which was previously put on hold in 2024 and is now expected to begin operations in 2028. That said, the factory is most likely to be much smaller than first intended, and some of the incentives promised from the state are in question depending on VinFast’s commitment to jobs and other agreements.
