Grab has detailed plans to expand its electric vehicle (EV) charging network in Vietnam 15-fold, from around 400 ports today to more than 6,000 by 2028, positioning itself as a brand-neutral alternative to VinFast’s dominant proprietary charging system. Nearly half the new ports will be located in Hanoi, where authorities are gradually clamping down on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

The expansion will not entail direct ownership but instead through Grab’s investment in local operator Eboost and partnerships with Charge+, EV One and ChargeLink. All of these will be made accessible through a single EV Utility feature in the Grab Driver app that lets partners find, pay for and use charging, regardless of which company actually owns and operates the station. According to Grab Vietnam Managing Director Ma Tuan Trong, more than seven in ten drivers who try the feature return to it within a week.

The rollout plans have already been formalised through a memorandum of understanding signed with Hanoi authorities on 30 June, and Grab says it plans to extend the same connected-charging approach to two-wheelers—overwhelmingly the most popular mode of transportation in Vietnam—once the car-focused network matures. 

The push builds upon Grab’s other supports for electrification during 2026. This includes the March announcement of a weekly fuel cost bonus of up to 7% of revenue for ICE car drivers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Separate incentive programmes encouraging drivers to switch to EVs have also been deployed previously.

Grab’s platform-agnostic approach to charging infrastructure stands in direct contrast to the model built by the ubiquitous Vingroup: the VinFast EV brand is Vietnam’s best-selling automaker and its charging arm, V-Green, operates more than 150,000 ports across all 63 provinces, including 99 highway ultra-fast hubs backed by a US$400m commitment. 

That network is, unsurprisingly, exclusive to VinFast vehicles, and Vingroup reinforces it further through Green Smart Mobility, an electric taxi fleet that guarantees VinFast wholesale orders and keeps V-Green chargers running at high utilisation, a playbook the group is now exporting to Indonesia, the Philippines and beyond.

Grab’s neutral-network strategy, therefore, has a sound commercial logic: without it, drivers of BYD, Hyundai or other EV brands are left navigating a fragmented patchwork of third-party chargers while VinFast owners get a single, seamless experience. Grab’s own platform already spans VinFast and BYD EVs, in addition to ICE-powered Toyota and Hyundai models, making shared charging infrastructure increasingly central to keeping drivers of any brand on its app.

The urgency stems partly from Hanoi’s shifting policy towards electrification. The city softened an original plan to ban ICE-powered two-wheelers outright from its historic centre, opting instead for a phased low-emission zone that began with a six-month awareness pilot on 11 streets around Hoan Kiem Lake on 1 July. The zone will be expanded to cover the French Quarter and Old Quarter in 2027, and the full 26-square-kilometre Ring Road 1 perimeter by 2028, when only Euro 3-compliant two-wheelers will be allowed to enter.

It goes without saying that VinFast was the main beneficiary of the original ban announcement, selling 406,498 electric two-wheelers in 2025, a near-sixfold increase—largely in anticipation of restrictions that would later be softened considerably. With Hanoi’s roughly eight million registered two-wheelers, and limited public transport still constraining how fast the city can push adoption, Grab’s charging expansion looks designed to ensure that whichever brand’s EVs eventually fill that gap, its own app remains the way drivers find power for them.