How GM Made the $35,000 Chevrolet Equinox EV into a 319-Mile Range Champ

You clearly don't know much about it.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If someone has lived in the north for several years, call it HCMC. If someone has lived in the south for several years, call it Saigon.

If you're in Hanoi or Haiphong, call it HCMC.

If you're in HCMC/Saigon, call it Saigon.

That said, most VNese in VN don't care.

> I don't want to be involved with politics

Most people don't. It's stressful and outside our hands.

> Vietnam which suffers from severe air pollution especially from vehicle exhaust -- the worst being in Hanoi -- is the adoption of electric vehicles manufactured by VinFast

A lot of the pollution around Hanoi+Red River Delta is because of coal power plants and the fact that it's surrounded by mountains trapping all the smog (sort of like Milan and Los Angeles)

There might be more adoption in Hanoi (wouldn't be surprised as VinGroup is from there and PSU employment is much more prominent there) but at least in Saigon/HCMC and a couple other southern+central cities, they weren't as prominent.

Most people had motorbikes and those with cars were largely driving Korean+Japanese brands (Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Hyundai)

I don't think that was ever on the table. Giving any country a base in VN would drastically affect it's tightrope of neutrality.

For example, they have strategic partnerships with US, China, Russia, Sourh Korea, Japan, and India in order to balance relations and maintain neutrality

One thing I'm scared is if Trump becomes president, because a lot of people in his orbit who potentially will become SecState aren't as publicly tactful as it is a quick political win, and might force VN to choose between neutrality or a side.

If VN is pushed to make a choice, they most likely will choose China just like Thailand+Malaysia did because no one wants a war over the SCS.

----------

The Armed Forces are pro-US, as much of the leadership started their career in the Sino-Vietnamese and Vietnam-Cambodia wars from 1979-1991, and the VN Navy has had multiple confrontations with China in the 2010-2017 period similar to those PH is facing today.

The MPS and Nguyen Phu Trong's faction (I call them the Northern faction because of Nguyen and his acolytes starting their career in North VN during the war to 1990s) are much more authoritarian, and more open to leaning towards China due to business and party relations as a lot of FDI in Northern VN came from China. The new president is from this faction.

The currently purged faction (who I call the Southern faction because Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Truong Dan Sang plus their acolytes started their careers in Southern VN in the 1990s). They are also authoritarian, but more business facing and more open to Western relations as much of Southern VN's FDI came from Korean and Japanese companies. VN was largely ruled by this faction throughout the late 2000s-early 2020s when COVID corruption scandals came front and center. Hoa/Chinese Vietnamese are fairly prominent in this faction as they tend to be prominent in business.

For now, VN appears to prefer neutrality and not having to choose between a side, but if push comes to shove, they will make the choice that will prevent a localized war due to leadership's memories of the 1940s-1990s.

It's an irrelevant distinction, agreed.