SOUTHEAST ASIA: VIETNAM REPORT
Vietnamese electric bike manufacturer Dat Bike says it has raised $5.3 million. This brings the total raised by Dat Bike, founded in 2019, to $10 million. The funds will be used to invest in technology, increase production, expand operations to major cities in northern, central, and southern Vietnam, and hire skilled workers.
Dat Bike is a tech startup that plans to promote environmentally friendly transportation, first in Vietnam and then soon in Southeast Asia. The company’s strength lies in the performance of its electric bikes compared to gasoline-powered bikes. The company achieves this through vertical integration, in which key components such as speed controllers and batteries are designed and manufactured in-house.
The company currently sells two products: the Weaver, launched in 2019, has an output of 5 kW, about three times that of most electric bikes in the same price range. It has a range of 100 kilometers, about twice as long as competing models.
In November 2021, the company launched a second model, the Weaver 200. It has a range of 200 kilometers, twice that of the Weaver, and is even more powerful, with an output of 6 kW. Charging time has been reduced to 1 hour for a range of 100 kilometers and 2.5 hours for a full charge of 200 kilometers. Other electric bikes take 6-8 hours.
Son Nguyen, founder of Dat Bike, has high expectations for the market, saying, “With a population of 660 million and a motorcycle penetration rate of over 80%, Southeast Asia is a market with great potential.”
Jungle Ventures in Singapore, which led the funding round, said that with a market size of $25 billion, the Southeast Asian motorcycle industry is at the forefront of electrification.
Source: The Nikkei
PSR Analysis: When looking at the mobility market in Southeast Asia, observers often look first to Thailand and Indonesia. These two countries certainly are important in terms of market size and maturity. However, when it comes to EVs, Vietnam cannot be ignored. As a motorcycle powerhouse, Vietnam has abundant domestic demand for motorcycles, and there is strong interest in the market for EV motorcycles, led by VINFAST.
Dat Bike’s primary selling point is that its products are competitive with conventional gasoline models in terms of performance and price. Its price tag of 39.9 million VND also corresponds to the median price of a gasoline-powered motorcycle. Also, Dat Bike has partnered with banks and financial institutions to offer its customers 12-month interest-free payment plans.
Another of Dat Bike’s strengths is that it manufactures its own products with locally sourced components. Being able to manufacture without relying on sourcing from China or other countries avoids the instability of global supply chains, and in terms of taxation, being able to source parts domestically is a big advantage, given the 45% import duty on bikes and the 15-30% import duty on parts.
On the other hand, there are no tariffs on exports within Southeast Asia. This situation gives Dat Bike a significant advantage over bikes imported from outside Southeast Asia.
Overcoming the two main weaknesses of conventional EV bikes, the lack of power and high price, I believe that Dat Bike will continue to grow and make great strides in the next three to five years as it expands its business area from Vietnam to Southeast Asia. PSR
Akihiro Komuro is Research Analyst, Far East and Southeast Asia, for Power Systems Research
