“Asset light” means a company tries not to own as many costly things itself. Instead, it leans more on other companies to build or handle parts of the operation.
NASDAQ is where public companies’ stock trades in the U.S. The episode mentions it because Vinfast is publicly listed there, so its restructuring affects investors.
Vingroup is the bigger company that owns Vinfast. The episode says Vingroup is backing a large amount of loans, so it’s taking on a lot of the financial risk.
An SEC filing is an official document a public company submits to U.S. regulators. It’s meant to clearly tell investors what the company is doing and why.
An “asset-like model” is a way of running the business that tries to use less expensive, factory-style ownership. The goal is to spend less money up front so the company can start making money sooner.
“Asset-heavy” means the company is tied to expensive things it owns, like factories. That usually costs more money to run, so it can take longer to become profitable.
Genesis is a luxury car brand connected to Hyundai. The podcast is talking about plans to bring the brand to the UK and get it set up there. That matters because it affects where you can buy and service the cars.
The VinFast VF3 is the small SUV VinFast used to test a new way of selling cars. Instead of traditional showrooms, the company used live-stream shopping to collect pre-orders and deposits quickly.
TikTok Shop is a shopping section inside TikTok where you can buy products directly from the app. The episode brings up Europe to suggest this live-stream shopping approach may spread there too.
Brand
Vin ID
Vin ID is VinFast’s own platform/account that the episode says was used to host the live shopping sessions. It’s part of how VinFast organized the VF3 launch online.
Live commerce is basically shopping during a live video. You watch someone show the product, and the buying steps are built into the stream so you can order immediately.
A non-refundable deposit is a payment you make to reserve something, but you can’t get it back later if you change your mind. Here, it’s how viewers commit while watching the stream.
Pre-orders are orders placed before a product is delivered, often used to gauge demand and secure early production slots. The segment cites VinFast’s pre-order volume as evidence that live-stream deposits can drive rapid commitment.
Live shopping is when a seller shows a product on a live video and lets viewers buy or put money down immediately. The idea is that it shortens the usual waiting and decision process.
Stellantis is a big car company that owns multiple brands. In this clip, they’re mentioned as having tried live streams for an electric Peugeot.
Car
Peugeot E208
The Peugeot E208 is an electric Peugeot 208. The hosts mention it as an example of a European brand trying live streams, but not at the same scale as VinFast.
The Renault 5 E-Tech Electric is an all-electric car based on the Renault 5 name. The podcast mentions live Q&A sessions, which are used to answer questions about the car and how it works. It’s an EV aimed at regular buyers, not just specialists.
Tesla is a major electric-car company. The point here is that they sell cars in a more “store experience” way, with people who know the cars, instead of a traditional dealership setup.
BYD is a big electric-car company. In this part, the host is using BYD as an example of a brand that’s already good at selling EVs in a way that others can learn from.
Dacia Spring is a relatively affordable electric car. The host is saying that live-stream shopping may start with cheaper EVs like this before moving up to more premium models.
BYD Dolphin is a compact electric car. The host is using it as an example of the kind of affordable EV that could be sold through live-stream shopping in Europe first.
Used EV prices are what people pay for electric cars that have already been owned. The host says in the UK those prices have started going up, which changes the “is it a bad time to buy?” math.
Kazana is a company that provides market data. The host uses its numbers to support the claim that used EVs are selling faster than other types of used cars.
This means used EVs are selling faster than other kinds of used cars. The host is using that as evidence that more people are ready to buy used electric cars.
The Audi e-tron is an all-electric SUV made by Audi. The podcast is talking about how some electric cars can lose value faster than expected after a few years. That matters if you’re thinking about buying one used.
The Volkswagen ID.3 is an all-electric hatchback made by Volkswagen. Many people lease them, so when leases end, more show up as used cars. That’s why it’s brought up when talking about used EV prices.
The Polestar 2 is an all-electric car made by Polestar. The podcast is talking about how more of them are becoming available used, which can influence prices. It’s mentioned because it’s part of the EV models people can buy second-hand.
Term
three to five-year-old EVs
This is the age range where lots of EVs start showing up as used cars. The host uses it to explain why sales are picking up now.
Term
four-core petrol equivalent
The host is comparing EVs to petrol cars using a common yardstick, so buyers can judge whether the EV deal is actually good. The exact wording here sounds like a transcription glitch, but the idea is a like-for-like comparison.
Battery degradation means the battery slowly doesn’t work as well as it used to. The host says new data suggests the drop in battery health is smaller than many people worried about.
Battery health is basically how strong the battery still is compared to brand-new. The host says a large study found the average EV battery was still around 95% after a few years.
A manufacturer warranty is the coverage provided by the automaker, and for EVs it commonly includes battery-specific terms. The host’s point is that battery warranty coverage can still be active on many 3-year-old EVs, which affects risk and used pricing.
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the amount of electricity you’re buying. Charging prices are usually listed per kWh, so it’s the main unit that drives your total cost.
Term
pay-as-you-pride gop
This is a specific way of calculating charging cost averages. In this segment, it’s mainly used to estimate what the typical rapid/ultra-rapid charging price was in April 2026.
Off-peak means electricity costs less at certain times of day. That’s why charging at home overnight or during low-demand hours can be much cheaper than public fast chargers.
Term
AC
“AC” is the type of electricity you typically get at home. EVs can charge on it, but it’s usually slower than the fast public “DC” chargers.
Term
home networks
They mean the electricity plan you use at home. Your plan affects what you pay per unit of electricity, which changes your EV charging cost.
“Rapid DC” is a fast-charging setup you usually find at public stations. It can refill an EV much quicker than charging at home, but it often costs more.
“EV tariffs” are special electricity rates for people who charge an EV at home. They’re often cheaper at certain times, so you can save money by charging when the rate is lower.
GridServe is a company that runs public EV charging stations. In this segment, they’re mentioned because their charging price changes with how fast you charge.
Brand
connected curb
“Connected Curb” is mentioned as a previous segment where they covered this topic. It’s basically a reference to earlier discussion about charging costs.
The “EV charging fairness gap” is the idea that not everyone pays the same for charging. People who can’t charge at home often have to use expensive public chargers, so their costs are much higher.
Public charging networks are the services that run EV chargers you can use outside your home. Different networks can charge different prices, so it pays to compare.
Plunge pricing means the cost to charge can suddenly get much cheaper at certain times. It’s designed to help you save money if you charge when the price drops.
The Dodge Charger is a car that’s built for performance and a sporty driving feel. In this podcast context, it’s being mentioned alongside charging and running costs, which is about what it costs to keep a car going. The key point is the discussion of expenses rather than the car’s charging hardware.
Destination charging means charging your EV at a place you’ll be parked for a while, like a hotel or store. Since you’re not just “topping up,” it can make charging cheaper and easier.
Seven kilowatts is a slower charging speed. If your charger is slow, you have to wait longer to add the same driving range, so the cost can end up higher.
“Pence per mile” is a way of pricing EV charging by how much it costs to drive a mile. It helps you compare EV costs to gas, but it depends on how efficiently your car uses electricity.
Term
2 quid a liter
“Quid a liter” is just how much petrol costs per liter. They’re comparing that to what it costs to drive an EV.
Public charging prices are the cost to charge your EV at public stations. They’re usually charged per unit of electricity, so the price can change depending on where you plug in.
State of health is a way to measure how “healthy” an EV battery is compared to brand-new. If it’s high, the battery has lost less capacity and should still give you good range.
Brand
P3
P3 is mentioned as another source of EV battery-related data. The host is saying the results match across different sources.
A home charger is a charging box you install at your house so you can plug in your EV at home. It’s usually easier and can cost less than charging at public stations.
A grant is money from the government that helps pay for something—in this case, installing a home EV charger. It lowers what you have to pay out of pocket.
The Tesla Model Y is an all-electric SUV/crossover. The discussion here is about whether buying one used in summer 2026 is a good time based on prices and availability.
Concept
early adopter phase of the used EV market is over
“Early adopter phase” means the first group of people who were eager to buy EVs. The idea here is that the market has moved past that initial rush, so prices may behave more normally.
Charging cables are the cords/connectors you use to plug your EV into a charger. The hosts are saying people are starting to sell these accessories through TikTok before selling full cars.
LIVE
The company is Vinfast, the Vietnamese electric car maker, listed on the NASDAQ, they've just
lost a $530 million restructuring, they've gone what they call asset light, selling
off their Vietnamese manufacturing, restructuring their finances and repositioning the whole
business.
And the most interesting bit isn't the financials, I'm going to go over and show you some stuff
about Vinfast now, so let's go down there, and I'm going to share this screen instead, so
here we go, I'm just going to show you some graphics there, so we're talking about what
they've done. It's how they sell cars, they sell them on live stream, 501 cars in three days,
27,000 pre-orders in 66 hours, the same way TikTok sells you a curling iron.
The company is Vinfast, the Vietnamese electric car maker, listed on the NASDAQ,
they've just announced a $530 million restructuring, they've gone what they call
asset light, selling off their Vietnamese manufacturing, restructuring their finances,
repositioning the whole business, and the most interesting bit isn't the financials,
it's how they sell cars, they sell them on live stream, 501 cars in three days, 27,000
pre-orders in 66 hours, the same way TikTok sells you a curling iron.
So today we're going to go deep on Vinfast and what happened, what they actually do
that's different. And the much bigger story underneath it, that live social shopping is
now a billion dollar industry that's starting to land in Europe, cars included. After that we'll
do used EV prices in the UK that went up for the first time this year, which is a pretty
significant turning point. Our club rates are showing increases, I'll flash them up again in
a minute for you to see them, but they're all going up at the moment. It's a pretty significant
turning point and public charging on the rapid network just got more expensive again, 79p per
kilowatt hour weighted average on the ZAP map index. So four stores, 30 minutes, and as always
primetime.com slash club free to join, you get the best charging rates and the best lease deals
in your inbox every month. So let's get into it. Okay, so Vinfast, let's start with what you
actually need to know about them because most British EV drivers genuinely couldn't pick a
Vinfast out of a lineup. What is Vinfast and what's happening to the company in May 2026?
Vinfast is a Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer listed on the NASDAQ since 2023,
owned by Vin Group, Vietnam's biggest conglomerate. On the 12th of May, 2026, Vinfast filed the USSEC
announcing a $530 million restructuring of its Vietnamese operations, transferring its
manufacturing arm to a separate entity and pivoting to what it calls an asset-like model.
Keeping the brand, the technology, and the sales operation, but offloading the factories.
So that's the company. The story today is the restructuring, and it's worth understanding
because it's one of the biggest reorganizations of a publicly listed EV brand we've seen
since the Polestar, since Polestar reset its finances in 2024. Here's what the SEC filing
actually says in plain English. Vinfast is splitting itself in two. The factory side,
called VFTP, Vinfast Trading and Production, is being sold to a separate biogroup led by an entity
called Future Investment Research and Development. That deal is around $530 million. The remaining
Vinfast, the brand, the design, the technology, the global sales operation, will become the company
you see listed on the NASDAQ. The point of it is straightforward. Vinfast has been burning cash.
They had targeted breaking even by the end of 2026. That's now been pushed to 2027. Vingroup,
the parent company, is on the hook over over $2.5 billion in loan guarantees.
Something had to change. So they're separating the capital heavy bit, making the cars from the
hand heavy bit, just being marketing and selling them. If you're a Vinfast customer in Vietnam,
and there are 100,000 of you who bought a car in the first nine months of 2025 alone,
nothing visible changes. Same factories, same warranties, same service. The filings make that
very clear. If you're a Vinfast investor on the NASDAQ, the bet is asset-like business turns
profitable faster than an asset-heavy one. We'll see. Now the European bit, because this is where
it gets interesting for us. Vinfast announced UK plans back in 2022. They hired a former Genesis UK
boss, Andrew Pilkington, to set it up. They were going to launch the VF6 and the VF8, a compact SUV
and a mid-sized SUV, using a direct consumer model similar to Tesla. Their own showrooms,
their own sales team. By autumn 2024, the UK launch was postponed. In May 2025, it was
cancelled entirely. Vinfast UK was closed. Andrew Pilkington's role ended. The right-hand drive cars
that were going to be built in Vietnam ended up going to Indonesia instead. Across continental
Europe, the numbers are sobering. According to AAA Delta, Vinfast registered 84 cars across
the whole of Europe in the first half of 2025. Six of those were in France. The brand sold 97,399
cars globally in 2024. Most of those were at home in Vietnam. We've got a company that's a dominant
force in its home market, first car brand in Vietnamese history to sell over 100,000 cars in
three quarters, 11 straight months as the country's number one car maker. There's also a company that
didn't manage to get traction in Europe with the direct sales model. What's worth noticing here
is the strategic pivot. Through 2025, Vinfast started signing dealer partnerships in Germany,
France and Netherlands. Schachtheider Automobil in Germany, Autohaus Hoops, Astrada Simba in France,
they moved away from direct to consumer franchise dealers. The same model BYD is using,
the same model MG uses. It's a real change of approach. The picture is this. Vinfast in Europe
is much smaller than they planned. They're going through dealers rather than their own showrooms
and the global business is restructuring to take pressure off the balance sheet.
But to understand why any of this is interesting beyond Vinfast itself, you have to understand
the bit they really did differently. Back home where they actually became dominant and that's
the marketing model, specifically how they actually sold cars, which is the bit I'm really
interested in. It's fascinating and that's what we're going to look at next. Vinfast in 2026
is a brand in the middle of a strategic pivot. The Vietnamese business is one of the most successful
EV launches in any single national market in the world. The European business scaled back
significantly and is now rebuilding through partnerships. Whether the asset like restructuring
works is a story for 2027. But what they've done in Vietnam with their marketing is something every
car brand on the planet should be studying. And that's what we're going to talk about after this
graphic. This is like selling cars on live stream, the Vietnam playbook. I'm amazed by this story
because I work in marketing and do a lot of this. So how they managed to get this moving in
actual live streaming in the way that you do live social shopping, which is a huge deal at the moment
in commerce and retail and marketing. Vinfast managed to crack it. So I think it's a good model
to just dissect a little bit for how car companies go about selling cars. Vinfast Part 2 live social
shopping, live stream car sales, TikTok shop Europe, Vinfast VF3. It's the stuff we're going to look
at. I'm going to dig into this because it's not really a Vinfast story. It's a much bigger story
and Vinfast happens to be the most interesting case study in it. How does Vinfast actually sell
cars and is live social shopping really coming to Europe? Here's the direct answer. In May 2024,
Vinfast launched the VF3, their mini SUV using nine live shopping sessions on Vietnamese e-commerce
platforms, Shopee and Vin ID hosted by 15 influencers. In three days, they took 501 pre-orders
generating 7.5 billion Vietnamese dong. By the end of 66 hours, they had 27,649 deposits and that's
for cars. Over half of all VF3 orders came in online. The first car in Vietnamese history to do
that. The same live stream model is now growing faster across Southeast Asia and it's starting
to appear in Europe. Let me walk you through how it actually works because if you haven't seen a
live shopping stream, the concept sounds slightly ridiculous and then you watch one and you go,
live shopping or live commerce or social commerce is exactly what it sounds like. A person on camera,
live, streaming on TikTok or Shopee or Lazada, holding the product up, demonstrating it,
answering questions in the chat and taking orders in real time. The product page is right there on
the screen. You click, you pay, the order goes through and it's massive. In Asia, in Vietnam,
TikTok shop is now the second biggest e-commerce platform in the country. All of Southeast Asia,
TikTok shop generated $38.2 billion in gross merchandise value last year. That's not small
numbers. That's industrial scale retail. What VinFast did with the VF3 was take that model,
which had been used for clothes, makeup, electronics, all the usual stuff and applied to cars,
which nobody had really done before at scale. Here's the structure. They pre-announced,
they picked 15 influencers, they scheduled nine live stream sessions across three days,
they put the VF3 in front of the camera, the hosts walked through the spec, opened the doors,
sat in it, drove it and during the stream, this is the bit that's clever, you could place a non-refundable
deposit, just put a deposit down live while watching. They took 501 orders during those
nine sessions alone. By the end of the three days, they had 27,649 pre-orders for a car that started
at around $9,000. They had to revise their production targets from 9,000 units to 20,000.
The thing I find genuinely interesting about this, and this is what European car brands are
quietly watching, is what live shopping does that conventional car retail doesn't. It compresses the
funnel. You go from having heard of the car to deposit paid in 15 minutes, which I think is
generally and genuinely incredible. There's no test drive, there's no dealer visit,
there's no haggle, it's an entertainment experience that ends in a purchase.
Now, is this happening in Europe yet? Honestly, slowly, but it's coming. TikTok shop launched
in 2023. It launched in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Ireland through 2025. Fashion and beauty
have led the way. Tech and home are following. The infrastructure is now in place across the EU.
I'm seeing a lot of it and we're witnessing it happen with a lot more people in the West
beginning to do more around it. It's really happening.
What we haven't seen at any meaningful scale is European OEMs running live shopping streams to
sell cars. There have been experiments. Stelantis have done live streams for the Peugeot E208.
Renault has run live Q&A sessions for the Renault 5, Renault 5, the Chinese premium EV brand uses
a model that's adjacent to live commerce on the European stores, but nobody has done what VinFast
did. Nobody has put a car on a live stream and taken deposits in the chat and the volume the
Vietnamese market has accepted. The reason and this is just a read on it is that European buyers
don't trust car brands enough to put money down without a test drive. The cultural muscle for
buying a 30,000 pound product on a live stream just isn't built yet and that kind of makes
sense. It's a car purchase. It's the second biggest purchase you'll ever make, but it is working in
some parts of the world. People usually want to sit in a car. Tesla started the model with
shopping in Westfield and so on, where you went into shopping centers and started seeing the vehicles
and that's happening more and more. So it was more like a product experience and you'd have
what felt like going to an Apple store with experts talking about the vehicles and so on,
rather than an old dealership where they didn't really understand EV traditionally and they were
on a fast track learning track and it was difficult for them. So people want to see the dealer. They
have to be adopted by BYD and everyone else really, really cleverly. That said, the generation
buying their first car right now, early 20s, late teens, bought their phones on Instagram
and their headphones on TikTok, their trainers on Shopee, those expectations are coming with them.
If you're a car brand, a better 2030 retail looks like, watching how fast Vinfast did this in
Hanoi in 2024 is not a waste of your time. Verdict, the most quietly important thing about
Vinfast isn't the cars or the restructuring or the European numbers. It's that they proved you
can sell vehicles on a live stream of scale and a market that was ready for it. Live social
shopping is going to land in Europe, probably not for premium cars first, probably for budget
electric runabouts, something like a Dacia Spring or a BYD Dolphin or a Surf or a Future City and
when it lands, the brands that's already done it 10,000 times in Vietnam will have a head start
nobody else has. I think it's worth keeping an eye on. Okay, let's go up to you to EV prices
because that's our next story for you and here we go. Right, story three and if you've been
watching this show through the back of last year, this is the story I've been waiting for,
used EV prices in the UK have just gone up for the first time this year. Used car electric prices
in the UK rose 1.1% in April 2026. The strongest performance of any fuel type according to new
data from Kazana. Used EV are now the fastest selling fuel type in the UK retail market,
selling 33% more in March and April than in the first two months of that year. The earlier
doctor phase used EVs is officially over. Let me unpack that because if you're hesitating on the
used EV, the math's just changed. For about two years, used EVs in the UK were the worst performing
segment of the retail market. Three year old Teslas were dropping faster than Bitcoin,
Audi e-trons, Mercedes UQCs, depreciation curves that look like a ski slope. Dears got their fingers
burnt, buyers held off because everyone was waiting for the next price drop. That's now ended.
Used EVs sold faster than petrol cars in April, faster than diesel, faster than hybrids. A third
more used EVs sold in March and April than in January and February. SMMT data for Q1 already
showed used EV transactions up 32% to nearly 87,000 cars. Market share of EVs has gone from
about 3.3% a year ago to 4.3% now. Here's the bit that should make any used EV buyer pay attention.
Prices were 1.1% in April. Hybrids were the next strongest at 0.9%. Petrol prices actually went
down 0.5%. So used EVs aren't just selling faster, they're holding value better than fuels everyone
said were unkillable. The Kazana data lead, a chap called Darren Martin, was on the record this
week saying in our paraphrase that the earlier phase of the used EV market is over. That's a very
significant sentence. It means we've moved from EVs or a pump to EVs are mainstream supply and
demand. Why is it happening now? These three things. One is petrol prices, diesel touching
two quid a litre because of what's going on in the Middle East, people doing the math of the pump
and switching and we get a lot of interest around that. Two, suppliers caught up. Three-year-old EVs
are now coming off lease in proper volumes. The Tesla Model Ys, the ID3s, the Kia Enaros,
the Polestar 2s, they're hitting the used car market with realistic prices and proven battery
health. Auto-trader data shows three to five-year-old EVs are now selling in just 25 days on a
four-core petrol equivalent, 35 days. It's a 10-day gap. And three, this one's a bit of downstream
work that we've been doing on the show this year, is about battery degradation and that
it has begun to crack. The UK's largest study showed average battery health of 95% across
8,000 EVs. We covered it last week. GeoTab covered it. The data is now in the public
conversation. And buyers are starting to believe that we're what we've been telling them for two
years. Actually telling them for a longer than that as well. Two years at most, at least rather.
So what you shouldn't do, what you should do if you're looking for a used EV right now.
First, don't try to turn the bottom. You've missed it. The market is called the floor.
Second, focus on three-year-old stock. That's where the value sits. The first owner depreciation
has happened. Your manufacturer warranty is still active on the battery in most cases.
And the price to range ratio is at its best. Third, definitely get a battery health check.
Most dealers will do one as a part of the inspection now. And if they don't, walk away. A car with an
88% health certificate is worth more than a car with no certificate at all. Fourth, don't pay for
the car you see. Volume is going up. Supply You can afford to wait a couple of weeks
to hit the right one. So if you're sat on a fence about a used EV, the floor just moved up.
You're not going to time the bottom of the market because we've passed it. I think a three-year-old
EV in May, 2026, is the best value buy in the used EV market in the UK. And the year from now,
I think we'll be saying that price is held up, not that they're crashed. Gazana has called it.
Auto Trader has called it. SMMT volume data backs it up. The market has decided. So now is the time
to jump in if you're going to do it. Okay. Public charge went up again. And we are showing that
public charging is on our prices for Primetime EV Club. We're showing that the prices are rising,
especially DC fast charging. Public charging in the UK, 2026, using the Zatmap price index,
rapid charging prices, and the octopus electroverse we're looking at too. Okay. So this is the last
story. And this one is going to annoy some of you because I'm going to be honest about it.
Public charging in the UK just got more expensive again. The Zatmap price index for April 2026 has
just dropped. And the rapid network has gone up another three pence per kilowatt hour in a single
month. The weighted average prices pay-as-you-pride gop, the weighted average pay-as-you-gop price
to charge an electric car on the UK rapid and ultra rapid public network in April 2026,
was 79 pence per kilowatt hour. Three pence per month. According to the Zatmap price index,
that works out to about 23 pence per mile. The cheapest network on the top 10,
62 pence per kilowatt hour. The most expensive was 92 pence. Home charging on an off-peak
tariff is still around 8.5 pence per kilowatt hour, roughly nine times cheaper. Let me show
you what that actually means in your pocket. And I'm actually going to be displaying the live
prices right now because we updated this morning before the show on where pricing is for AC,
rapid DC, and all the pricing on your home networks as well and where they are right now.
And we're sending those offers out to club members so that they can see the best prices
and we do that each month. If you're charging a home on octopus go or an intelligent octopus or
any of the dedicated EV tariffs, you're paying normally around seven to nine pence per kilowatt
hour, roughly two and a half people a mile. If you pay about eight quid for 200 miles last
month at home over nine, if you drive past a public rapid charger this week, they'll be
quoting 85 pence per kilowatt hour and that would cost about £48 for the same charge.
Say electricity six times the price, which is crazy. This is something that's got to happen
around this DC charging, the VAT on charging and everything else. So that's the gap, nine to one
on average, six to one, even on a decent home tariff. Now the public networks aren't doing this for
fun. The Zatmap data tells us why. Two major networks have pushed prices up substantially
in March and April, which dragged the weighted average up 3p. Instavolt has been sitting at
the top of the price range at around 85p per kilowatt hour. Tesla superchargers for members
was around 53p a kilowatt hour, although that's not the quietest price today,
but it's one of the better deals out there if you're a member. GridServe sits between 79 and 93p
depending on speed. Total energy is at 79p flat for their 150 to 400 kilowatt sites. So if you've
got to use public and most EV drivers do for about 20% of their charging, the difference between
picking the wrong charger and the right one is genuinely significant. 40 quid versus 25 quid for
the same charge. But here's the bit that goes deeper. We covered this with connected curb a few
weeks ago. The 7 million UK drivers with driveway are stuck paying the public rate for all of their
charging, not 10% or 20% all of it. And they're paying nine times what everyone else pays who's
got home charging because they live in a flat or on a terrace street or in a council block.
That is the EV charging fairness gap UK 2026. It's the biggest unsolved problem in the transition.
The grant has gone up 500 quid for a home charger from the 1st of April. The cross-pavement solution
grant is still there. The local EV infrastructure fund, the levy fund, is finally rolling out at
street level. But for the driver who can't install a charger at home this year, the math is brutal
and it's getting harder, not easier. We did a deep dive on UK charging grants because they changed on
the 1st of April in the last couple of weeks. You'll see that in some of our previous show
on Spotify, on Apple and on YouTube podcasts. So what do you do actually do about it? One,
if you've got the option, the Octopus Electroverse is genuinely one of the best
public charging networks in the country right now in terms of deals. They aggregate over 50
networks and give you a single tariff card worth looking at and they do a lot of plunge pricing
on there as well. Two, get on ZapMap. It's the root planner. Filter it by price. There's a real
spread now and the lazy answer of just use whichever charger comes up is costing people 15 quid a stop.
Three, look at destination charging. Think about where you're going and how you're going to use
the car. Supermarket car parks, hotels, retail parks. Many are still free or under 30 people per
kilowatt hour. If you can grocery shop and charge for two hours at the same time, you've changed your
maths completely. Just don't sit on one of those seven kilowatt point charges from years ago because
you won't get much in there and they're actually quite expensive now. They were free but they're
getting more expensive. We got a short going around YouTube that's had thousands and thousands
of comments about that and it's a good time to look at what you're actually getting. Sainsbury
seemed to have a good charging network. I'll put the prices back up in a minute so you can see them.
So public charging UK 2026 is consolidated into a high price market with very little daylight
between the top providers. The cheap public charging window is closing. The serious savings now are
at home and that's how it's been for a while. If you have a driveway, you're finding one of two
networks that genuinely undercut. Everyone else is paying 23 pence per mile to drive electric which
is still cheaper than 2 quid a liter at the pump but the gap is narrower than it should be. If you've
got a driveway, you're winning or you can park off street. If you haven't, we need to keep pushing
the policy people for something better. The transition only works if everyone can afford it.
So I'll put the public charging prices up. So let's just go into our Q&A now and
make sure we've got that. So what I'll do is I'll just go back to our regular prices so that you
can see them like that. Share that screen instead. Share this tab instead and I will go like that
and hope it'll work. Okay cool. Yeah you can see it. Brilliant. All right so
questions. Q&A. Right we've got a few questions here. How long do EV batteries actually last in
2026? Longer than most people think and the data is now overwhelming. The UK's largest battery health
study looking 8000 EVs showed average state of health at 95% across all ages. Even at eight to
nine years old the median was 85% well above the 70% legal minimum. Manufacturers must maintain.
The battery degradation fear is a 2021 fear in a 2026 market so get your car tested, get a battery
health certificate and just check it out. If you're buying a three-year-old EV in May 2026
you should expect 90% plus battery health. The data is now consistent across Geotab,
P3 and the UK study. Don't let anybody in Facebook tell you otherwise. Question two,
did Vinfast ever sell any cars in the UK? No. Vinfast announced UK plans, launch plans in 2022.
They hired a Genesis veteran in 2023 and they postponed in autumn 24 and cancelled entirely in
May 2025. Vinfast has been closed. UK has been closed down. No cars have been delivered to UK
customers. The brand pivoted to a dealer franchise model in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
If you're seeing Vinfast cars listed on any UK site this year, they're parallel imports,
not officially supported, probably worth avoiding. But I do hope they come back and I do hope they
start live social shopping because it's incredible watching what they've managed to achieve with
live social shopping before. Question three, is it worth getting a home charger now that the
grant is £500? Yes. If you own your own driveway and your own EV, get the charger. The grant went
up £500 per socket on the 1st of April 2026. A typical seven kilowatt home war box installed
costs £800 to £1,200. With the grant, you're looking at £300 to £700 out-pocket, recovered in
about nine to 14 months of charging savings. You'll recover it so quickly charging at home.
The one caveat, if you're a renter or you live in a flat, the cross-pavement solution grants are
now available, but availability varies by council, so you're going to need to check availability
with your councils before you commit. Question four, should I buy a used Tesla Model Y in summer
2026? Lots of questions around this because used Model Y Teslas have fantastic cars, but Tesla
hasn't been attracting all kinds of speculation and problems over the last couple of years.
So do you want a Tesla? Well, if you like Tesla, yes. If you want to use Model Y, summer 2026
is statistically the best window to buy one. Used EV prices rose 1.1% in April for the first time
this year, and Kazana data suggests the early adopter phase of the used EV market is over.
Three-year-old Model Ys are now selling in around 25 days versus 35 for petrol equivalents.
The Model Y is the most traded EV used EV in the UK right now. Plenty of supply,
prices are stabilizing. If you're going to do it the next two months, you're best window.
Will I ever be able to buy a car on TikTok in the UK? So will live social shopping come to you?
Probably, but slowly. TikTok shop launched in the UK in 2023 and across Europe in 2025,
but no major car brand has yet committed to selling cars by a live stream at scale in Britain.
The cultural muscles put down the deposit on a 30k vehicle without a test drive isn't built here yet,
for obvious reasons. Expect budget EVs and accessories first, full cars later, possibly by
2028. I constantly get pushed to sell merchandise on my TikTok channels for Primetime EV,
and I've just started experimenting with some bits and I see that the other
creators who are working in the EV space are also kind of experimenting with it.
so let's see how it goes. They promise you a little bit of a commission,
but this is not live social shopping, this is just having TikTok shop associated with your creator
account. What's more likely in the meantime is Q&A live streams, live unveilings with
deposit links and influencer-led pre-launch campaigns. I think we'll see a lot more of that.
Okay, that's it. That's the show, been fast restructuring $530 million and pivoting their
European strategy, live social shopping quietly building in Europe behind the scenes,
used EV prices turning around for the first time this year, and public charging getting
more expensive again on the rapid network. If you've got value out of this, the best thing you
can do and the cheapest thing because it's free is jump on primetimeev.com slash club.
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enjoy the sunshine.
About this episode
VinFast’s pivot is the thread: the show walks through its $530M restructuring and “asset light” shift, then zooms in on how live-stream car sales drove rapid deposits and pre-orders. The hosts connect that playbook to broader UK EV retail changes—used EV prices moving, faster sales, and battery-health reassurance—while also tackling the cost side of ownership. Public DC charging is getting pricier, so they share ways to find cheaper charging and use battery certificates to protect used values.
VinFast's $530M restructuring, the livestream model that sold 27,000 cars in 66 hours, used EV prices turning a corner, and UK public charging now at 79p/kWh.
This week on Primetime EV Live, we go deep on one story. VinFast. The Vietnamese EV brand listed on the Nasdaq has just announced a $530 million restructuring. They're going asset-light, separating brand from manufacturing and rebuilding their European presence through dealer partnerships.
The more interesting story is how they sold cars in the first place. In May 2024 they took 27,649 pre-orders for the VF 3 mini-SUV in 66 hours through nine livestream sessions on Vietnamese e-commerce platforms, with 15 influencers. The same way TikTok sells lipstick. We look at what that model looks like, whether it's coming to Europe, and what it tells us about how cars get bought now.
Then: used EV prices in the UK rose 1.1% in April. The first growth of the year and the strongest of any fuel type. The early-adopter phase is officially over. Plus the Zapmap Price Index for April 2026 - public rapid charging now at 79p per kilowatt-hour, up 3p in a single month. The 9× home-vs-public gap, the 7 million UK drivers without a driveway, and what to do about it.
CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:30 What is VinFast and what's happening in May 2026?
00:08:00 How does VinFast sell cars on livestream — and is it coming to Europe?
00:15:00 Are used EV prices going up or down in the UK in 2026?
00:22:00 How much does public charging cost in the UK in 2026?
00:28:00 Your questions: batteries, VinFast UK, home chargers, used Teslas
00:29:30 Club CTA and sign-off
Sources: SEC filing 12 May 2026 · AAA Data · Cazana · SMMT Q1 2026 · Zapmap Price Index April 2026
Join the Primetime EV Club - free - at primetimeev.com/club for the best UK charging rates and lease deals every month.
