Shadowing Practice: The Vinfast VF8 is.... trying - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Okay, you asked for it.

⏸ Paused

Speed:

295 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

Okay, you asked for it.

This is the car that a lot of you guys sent me after the Fisker review,

where I mentioned that that was the worst car that I've ever reviewed,

or at least the worst car experience I've ever had.

And I didn't wanna make this review about the Fisker again,

because that's kind of a crazy comparison.

Oh, which one is the worst car?

Is this one actually worse?

But a lot of you guys asked for this.

This is the VinFast VF8.

This is a car that's just now showing up in the US.

You might not have ever heard of Vinfast,

but Vinfast has this whole lineup.

It's going to be like the VF5,

6, 7, 8, and 9.

All of them SUVs, the 9 being the biggest three-row.

But this is basically a Model Y-sized electric crossover.

And it has a shocking amount of similarities with the Fisker.

I'll put it that way.

But it's different.

I'll just walk you through it.

So this is a very popular size to make a new vehicle, right?

So I don't blame them for trying.

Model Y is the most popular selling vehicle in the world.

So why not make a competitor to that one?

And this one, it has a lot of shades of good looks.

I think the front end is a little bit complicated,

but the headlights are here.

The blinkers are here.

It's got these DRLs, VinFast logo in the middle.

And I assume the VF stands for VinFast.

So I think that makes this the VinFast, VinFast 8.

But you know, you get around to the side and this is a pretty reasonable looking vehicle.

I get shades of Mach-E from this angle, from this front three-quarter.

You got your charging port up here.

These arrow caps on the wheels, pretty normal looking.

There's two trims of this,

the Eco and the Plus.

So this is the Plus.

It'll have a little more horsepower.

But we get to the back,

and it's a totally normal looking hatchback.

And I actually think some of these taillights,

again, are bringing Mustang back.

But that's the back of this.

This whole vehicle, this whole thing starts in, I think, the mid-40s.

$40-something thousand dollars and then the plus is like 50,000 plus.

To me, the philosophy behind this vehicle was,

yeah, we're gonna have to make something cheap,

and they kind of almost did,

but it brings back the age-old smartphone question.

Would you rather buy a brand new,

cheap piece of tech or a depreciated, older flagship?

And this one makes a good argument for the depreciated, older flagship.

But let's start with some of the good stuff, right?

So this is the key it's black and white

so it matches the car right to me it looks a little bit upside down

but whatever you can unlock and you hit that back button

and you can get into the back this is a power opening

and closing lift gate it's a pretty good amount of space

and when you want to cross over you probably want it for utilities

so you know these back seats they do sort of lean back a little bit

if you want and when they're not leaned back you get more space charging equipment

room for a full spare okay

so that's a good fundamental you don't always see a lot

of plastic in here i'll get to the interior materials in a second but hey power opening power closing

it's a good start

but then there's a little bit of good stuff to the back seat too

so i'll jump in regular door handles they don't like flush recess into the back of the car

so probably less likely to break and then you get these sort of brown

and black interior seats so a little bit more visually interesting than some others.

And then I jump in and I'm behind the 6.3 passenger position and I actually do have some space,

a little bit of legroom.

Not a lot of foot room under the seats,

but I do like that there's this huge glass sunroof.

This can move, this can open.

It is a pretty good spot to be,

at least for right here.

Now, why is there this in the middle?

Typically, a middle seat in an EV is a good spot to be

because you don't need this tunnel for like a transmission,

but this one still has it for some reason.

But then also, hey, look,

a good thing, 90 watt USB-C and two more USB-A for charging stuff.

Love seeing that.

And then let's say you don't have a center passenger,

no cup holders until you pop them out of the front there, little hidden things.

So that's cool to see.

Nice.

I don't suppose you spend a lot of time in the backseat of your own car,

but if you have passengers,

obviously they'll appreciate the bare fundamentals of this interior,

at least getting that done, right?

Good headroom because it's a nice shape.

It doesn't slope back quite as much as something like a Model Y.

But then, yeah, pretty quickly you start poking around and feeling a lot of money saving,

a lot of cheapness, like this plastic all through the door, pretty cheap feeling.

This, I mean, that's a normal switch, but plastic handle.

And so I'm sitting on vegan leather seats, which is totally fine.

100

There's lots of vegan leather materials,

101

but it's just, it doesn't feel great.

102

It's not poorly made.

103

It's just not a great material.

104

But let's just get to the front seat because there's a lot more,

105

there's a lot more to talk about with the front seat.

106

So here we go.

107

Let's drive the VF8.

108

Let's see what it looks like in the front seat.

109

Again, this is actually a decently roomy.

110

Why did I just flash the headlights?

111

What was that?

112

That was weird.

113

Okay.

114

Anyway, this is a very simple interior.

115

Shades of Tesla, lots of money saving,

116

except in one really interesting way,

117

which I actually kind of like.

118

So right in front of the driver,

119

you've got this nice sized steering wheel with real buttons on it.

120

And there's a little camera right here,

121

which I'll talk about in a second,

122

but there's no screen behind the steering wheel, okay?

123

Regular stocks with shockingly little travel.

124

It's kind of hard to explain that,

125

but no screen back here, right?

126

Very much looking like Model 3.

127

Just have a screen over here with all your software,

128

but then there's also an HUD.

129

So I think when I see no screen in front of the wheel,

130

I think, ah, of course,

131

less screens saving money, but an HUD.

132

I don't know.

133

Maybe Tesla should be taking notes from the VinFast.

134

So I like that there's an HUD.

135

Then you look at the rest of the inside of this car

136

and you know it's got the plastic it's got normal switches

137

here really simple layout physical volume knob is actually kind of

138

nice you can have your hazards on window lock your gears here two cup holders

139

and a wireless charging pad

140

that fits a giant ultra size phone with two usb ports

141

there one for battery one for data cool real hvac controls is another huge thing a lot of these evs

142

that are copying tesla are trying to do everything on the screen and because of how bad this software is,

143

I'm happy that there are real HVAC controls.

144

Nice little mirror up there.

145

Sunriser is pretty big.

146

And hey, just to give it credit on a couple more fundamentals,

147

wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and heated and ventilated front and rear seats.

148

Look at this.

149

Front seats, heat them up.

150

Rear seats, cool them down.

151

That goes for right and left, front and back.

152

Not too many other complaints about this extremely simple front other

153

than like this vegan leather is not the best it's especially

154

seeing this huge swath of it right in front of you you kind of look at

155

that a lot when you're driving

156

but that's where it starts to get a little bit as

157

Doug would probably say quirky driving this car living with this car lots of quirks.

158

So first of all, the key fob,

159

walking up to the car with the key fob in your pocket,

160

nothing happens, same as the Fisker.

161

This is, it's kind of unresponsive.

162

You have to hit the button to unlock the car.

163

Once you get in, fine, you're in.

164

I've noticed once when I got,

165

a couple of times I got in the car and it was making this weird sound from the air conditioning

166

in the corner of the car for a couple of seconds play a clip.

167

So yeah not really sure what that's all about

168

but then you get in

169

and again all of your software all of your interacting with the car is here

170

so there's no power button needed

171

which I love all you do is put your foot on the brake

172

and the first thing it's going to do is beep at me an obnoxious number of times.

173

Turn the car on.

174

Nice.

175

All the lights and then it tells you to buckle up often.

176

Great.

177

Okay.

178

Thank you.

179

Once you're in, this is what your software looks like.

180

This is giving me shades of like Kindle Fire 2013.

181

All right.

182

The layout is actually fairly intuitive,

183

but it's just the graphics and the way it looks,

184

which are a little bit odd,

185

a little cartoonish and colorful.

186

So this is your home screen,

187

which is literally apps over here,

188

like shortcuts to quickly use apps, and then widgets.

189

And you can literally hold them down and remove or add widgets or change wallpapers like an old Android tablet.

190

Which, again, it's intuitive.

191

It works.

192

It's just a, I don't know,

193

it's a little cartoony, I guess.

194

These are all the preloaded apps.

195

It literally looks like a Kindle Fire.

196

It's got Asphalt 9 preloaded,

197

Baja Big Air preloaded, Nancy Drew for some reason preloaded,

198

but these are all the apps that come with the car.

199

So you have the normal EV stuff,

200

you have your normal driver aids,

201

which are extremely annoying and go off all the time beeping while you're driving.

202

I love turning them off because that's seriously the best thing you can do when driving this car.

203

And then you can pair up a phone and make calls and everything like that.

204

It's all here.

205

It's just, you can see what I'm talking about, right?

206

Like it looks like an old Android tablet and when I'd rather have like a new tablet from four years ago,

207

then I don't know.

208

But okay, you can see up here now the HUD looks pretty good.

209

It'll show you your speed,

210

how many miles you have left.

211

All that is great.

212

But here's my least favorite favorite thing about the software in this car.

213

Number one, the cameras are weirdly low frame rate.

214

I'm just going to drive and see if you can see on camera.

215

If I drive forward,

216

oh it's another thing that Fisker that's another thing

217

that Fisker does it makes you buckle up before it takes the parking brake off

218

so you can't put it in drive

219

and take the parking brake off okay sorry drive low frame rate camera I don't know

220

if you can tell it's it's not great um you can

221

at least see things pretty well especially the reverse camera just weirdly bad like 1990s

222

bad but okay fine that's your camera then the other thing is going to drive modes here and

223

there is almost no difference between normal

224

and sport now eco driving will get you your most range

225

and this car is seeing like 200 to 230 miles on a full charge it's indicating more right now but

226

that's a pretty optimistic estimate.

227

Normal and Sport, they're almost identical.

228

I found that this car has a little bit of a delay in the inputs,

229

and I think it's intentional.

230

So hear me out.

231

When you're switching from a gas car to an electric car,

232

the number one difference with the electric car is usually the instant torque.

233

Okay.

234

Sorry.

235

Sorry.

236

Sorry.

237

So the instant torque of an electric car,

238

which is usually what makes it fun.

239

This car has a programmed in delay.

240

I think it's programmed in.

241

So if you stomp on the accelerator pedal in normal or in sport,

242

it like lurches on and builds the power up.

243

And I don't see the point in that.

244

I mean, I get that you're trying to make people switching from a gas car feel more at home and more comfortable,

245

but part of the nice thing about an EV is that instant torque.

246

I don't want it to have to build up.

247

It does that in both of those driving modes.

248

Creep mode is supposed to be whether or not you go forward or backwards when you take your foot off the brake.

249

I've found that in creep mode on or off

250

when I take my foot off the brake I still roll backwards on hills.

251

That is really weird.

252

That's also true about the Fisker.

253

And then regen braking again is a little bit uneven.

254

So high regen braking which is nice that gives you the most efficient driving and the best regen.

255

It's not totally one pedal because it'll slow down to like three

256

or four miles an hour and then take a while to get to zero.

257

I wish the pedal tuning was a little bit smoother and more intuitive in general.

258

There's also a ton of float to the suspension.

259

Somehow this weighs a thousand pounds more than a Model Y.

260

The steering is very vague.

261

There are all sorts of points where I feel like my input is not steering as much as I think it should,

262

or sorry, my input is more than I think it should be to steer the amount that I am.

263

Just not a fun car to drive dynamically in any way.

264

I'll put it that way, which is fine.

265

That might be totally cool with you,

266

but in its competition, which is like Ioniq 5,

267

Model Y, Mustang Mach-E, EV6, way better driving dynamics.

268

And that just kind of speaks to this being a new vehicle for this company.

269

And honestly, I think that that's really the theme that summarizes it.

270

You know, a lot of you guys are saying this is a worse car.

271

This will be the worst car I ever test.

272

I don't think it is.

273

It's not as buggy.

274

It's just laggy on its face

275

and a little bit behind the times as far as what you expect from a modern EV,

276

like that throttle input and chassis tuning and things like that.

277

But if you ask me which I would take, I would take this.

278

But I think a more important question is,

279

would you actually spend $50,000 on this car when you could get an older

280

Model S or you could get a three or four year old car that's much more refined or even today,

281

honestly you could get a Model Y for $50,000-$55,000.

282

And is there any reason to consider this one over those?

283

Let me know.

284

I kind of feel like VinFast is at the,

285

despite being a gigantic company,

286

they're at the mercy of being new to EVs and they're going to have to get better at this over time,

287

but we shall see.

288

We'll let it play out.

289

I just wouldn't recommend this car for right now.

290

Okay, I did it though.

291

I lived with it.

292

I reviewed it.

293

Thanks for watching.

294

Catch you guys in the next one.

295

Peace.

TRENDING

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

☕ Buy us a coffee

ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏

Donate via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – English Shadowing Practice

Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: The Vinfast VF8 is.... trying - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Popular

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: The Vinfast VF8 is.... trying - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Download App

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?