Shares of EV startup VinFast Auto Ltd. have given back some of their stunning Nasdaq-debut gains, but the company’s market capitalization has — on paper at least — jumped ahead of Ford Motor Co.’s and General Motors Co.’s market value.
VinFast
VFS,
shares dropped more than 18% on Wednesday, and were off nearly 4% in the extended session. The Vietnamese EV maker went public through a SPAC deal that valued it at about $23 billion, and the stock began trading Tuesday — it more than tripled by the end of its first session.
See also: Tesla launches cheaper, shorter-range Model X, Model S EVs
VinFast’s market capitalization stood at nearly $83 billion on Wednesday, according to FactSet. That compares with a market value of about $46 billion for Ford
F,
and around $45 billion for GM
GM,
Startup Rivian Automotive Inc.
RIVN,
whose market capitalization has, at times, also surpassed legacy automakers’ market caps, stood at about $20 billion. Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
reigns supreme at a valuation of nearly $720 billion as of Wednesday.
VinFast is a majority-owned affilliate of Vingroup, a conglomerate that is one of the largest publicly traded companies in Vietnam.
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Vingroup’s chairman and VinFast founder Pham Nhat Vuong controls about 99% of VinFast’s shares, putting only a small sliver of the company available to investors. The small number of shares available for trading also means that big swings are common.
VinFast broke ground on its North Carolina plant in July. The company said it plans to invest up to about $2 billion in the plant initially, and it expects to eventually reach the capacity to make 150,000 EVs a year.
For now, the company is importing its vehicles into the U.S., and in May the company welcomed a second shipment of its EVs. VinFast has sold about 13,000 electric vehicles this year, including nearly 4,000 in April.
This story originally appeared on Marketwatch
