Vietnam sold about 3.4 million two-wheelers in 2025, up 14.9 percent on the year and the fastest growth in Southeast Asia, according to Motorcycles Data. The headline hides a split: petrol models barely moved, while electric two-wheelers nearly doubled. In the first seven months of 2026, electrics took 27.6 percent of all two-wheeler sales, up from 16.8 percent a year earlier. The growth engine of Vietnam’s two-wheeler market is no longer petrol. It is electric.
| Measure | Figure | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Total two-wheeler market, 2025 | 3.4 million units | +14.9% year on year |
| Electric two-wheeler share, Jan–Jul 2026 | 27.6% | Up from 16.8% a year earlier |
| Electric two-wheeler sales, Jan–Jul 2026 | 513,742 units | +97.2% year on year |
| Petrol two-wheeler sales, Jan–Jul 2026 | About 1.3 million units | +4.4% year on year |
| VinFast electric two-wheeler deliveries, 2025 | 406,453 units | +473% year on year |
| Petrol sales, VAMM members, 2025 | 2,615,057 units | Down about 1.5% year on year |
Petrol has flatlined
The petrol side of the market has spent three years going nowhere. Sales reported by the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM), covering the five established petrol makers Honda, Yamaha, Piaggio, Suzuki and SYM, stood at 2,516,212 units in 2023, then 2,653,607 in 2024, then 2,615,057 in 2025, a decline of about 1.5 percent. The band of roughly 2.5 to 2.65 million units a year has held for three consecutive years. The first nine months of 2026 brought a modest pickup, up 7.2 percent year on year to 2,054,213 units, a recovery from a flat base, not growth. Petrol remains the volume backbone of the market, at 72.4 percent of sales in the first seven months of 2026, yet it is no longer where the market expands.
Electric is doing all the growing
The electric side tells the opposite story. VinFast, the domestic leader, delivered 406,453 electric two-wheelers in 2025, up 473 percent from about 71,000 in 2024, a nearly sixfold increase. Its Evo line alone accounted for more than 250,000 deliveries, and the company ended the year with more than 600 authorized distributors nationwide. Momentum carried into 2026: VinFast delivered 429,175 electric two-wheelers worldwide in the first half, up 275 percent, already more than its entire 2025 total, with 286,039 in the second quarter alone, up 311 percent. The Evo accounted for about 52 percent of first-half deliveries and the Feliz about 28 percent.
The shift is not a single-company story. Across the whole market, electric sales reached 513,742 units in the first seven months of 2026, up 97.2 percent year on year, against about 1.3 million petrol units, up just 4.4 percent. Total volume of about 1.8 million units rose 19.6 percent, and nearly all of that increase came from electrics. VinFast was the best-selling electric brand in the period, up more than 170 percent; Hoang Ha, general director of VinFast’s motorcycle division, said at the launch of the Kyo and Kinet models in Ho Chi Minh City on 20 July 2026 that the brand held about 60 percent of the electric segment and 24 percent of the total market in the first half of 2026. Other electric brands grew fast too: in 2025, Motorcycles Data recorded Yadea up 61.6 percent, Pega up 60 percent and Dibao up 75 percent, while VinFast climbed to second place overall, overtaking Yamaha, which fell 17.3 percent. Honda, the market leader, grew only 1.3 percent.
Why the shift is sticking
Three forces are converting a sales spike into a durable transition. The first is infrastructure. VinFast had installed 4,500 battery-swap stations by early 2026, with 45,000 swap cabinets planned for the first quarter, while free charging at public V-Green stations runs until May 31, 2027, and battery swapping is free for six months for individual buyers and twelve months for Xanh SM drivers. Countrywide, figures shared at a Hanoi University of Science and Technology seminar in September 2026 put the network at more than 15,000 charging stations, more than 150,000 charging ports and tens of thousands of swap cabinets, serving 3.5 to 4.1 million electric two-wheelers among about 78 million registered motorbikes. Swapping removes the two objections that once held buyers back: waiting to charge and worrying about battery life.
The second force is price. Electric two-wheelers now start at about VND 10 million and run to about VND 80 million, putting the cheapest electrics within reach of first-time buyers and delivery riders. Honda’s ICON e:, the Japanese maker’s entry electric model, is listed at VND 20.5 to 20.9 million before the battery, which costs more than VND 8.8 million. At those levels, the running-cost advantage of electricity over petrol does the persuading: for high-mileage riders, the fuel saving pays back the purchase premium in months rather than years.
The third force is policy. Hanoi will restrict petrol motorbikes inside Ring Road 1 from July 1, 2026, under a time-based scheme, extending to the Ring Road 1–2 area in 2028 and Ring Road 3 in 2030, following a prime ministerial directive issued in July 2025. The timetable gives buyers a clear signal: a petrol bike bought today faces shrinking access to the capital’s centre within its working life. VinFast reinforced the message with a trade-in program for petrol bikes, backed in early 2026 by a 6 percent price discount and full registration-fee support under its Green Future campaign, which ran from January 12 to April 12, 2026.
What comes next
Participants at the September 2026 Hanoi seminar projected that 28 to 30 percent of new two-wheelers sold in 2026 would be electric, a forecast the first seven months, at 27.6 percent, already put within reach. If that pace holds, electric models will account for roughly one in three new two-wheelers sold in Vietnam, and the market’s centre of gravity will have moved decisively.
Two cautions remain. The transition still depends heavily on one company: VinFast’s scale drives the charging network, the swap cabinets and the dealer footprint that make electrics practical, and a slowdown there would slow the whole segment. Battery safety and recycling, raised at the same Hanoi seminar, will also need answers as the first large cohorts of batteries age. But the direction of travel is settled. Petrol demand has plateaued at about 2.6 million units a year, 2025’s 14.9 percent market growth came almost entirely from electrics, and Vietnam is now the world’s fourth-largest two-wheeler market and its third-largest electric two-wheeler market. The market is not waiting for electric two-wheelers to arrive. They are already the reason it grows.
Read more:
Battery Swapping Helps Hanoi’s Apartment Riders Go Electric
VinFast Eyes Philippine EV Incentives for Its Batangas Plant
Sources: VinFast, “VinFast sets record with 406,453 electric motorbikes delivered in 2025” (https://vinfastauto.com/vn_vi/vinfast-dat-doanh-so-ky-luc-406453-xe-dan-dau-thi-truong-xe-may-dien-viet-nam-nam-2025); VinFast, “VinFast continues strong global delivery momentum in 2Q26” (https://vinfastauto.us/newsroom/press-release/vinfast-continues-strong-global-delivery-momentum-in-2q26); VnExpress International, “Vietnam’s motorbike market leads Southeast Asia in growth” (https://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/economy/vietnam-s-motorbike-market-leads-southeast-asia-in-growth-5012226.html); VnExpress, “Electric motorbike consumption in Vietnam continues to rise” (https://vnexpress.net/tieu-thu-xe-may-dien-tai-viet-nam-tiep-tuc-tang-5114587.html); Vietnam.vn (VNA), “Electric motorbike market share surges as petrol bikes face pressure” (https://www.vietnam.vn/en/thi-phan-xe-may-dien-tang-vot-xe-xang-chiu-suc-ep); VnAuto, “Electric motorcycles surge in Vietnam” (https://vnauto.net/2026/09/27/electric-motorcycles-surge-in-vietnam-tackling-battery-and-infrastructure-challenges/); VnAuto, “Electric motorcycles boom in Vietnam: over half a million sold in 7 months” (https://vnauto.net/2026/08/30/electric-motorcycles-boom-in-vietnam-over-half-a-million-sold-in-7-months/); Vietstock, “Vietnam motorcycle market slows amid transition” (https://en.vietstock.vn/2025/10/vietnam-motorcycle-market-slows-amid-transition-970-622387.htm); VnExpress, “Honda dominates petrol bikes, VinFast leads electric bikes” (https://vnexpress.net/honda-thong-tri-xe-may-xang-vinfast-dan-dau-xe-may-dien-5100642.html).
