Ford CEO Jim Farley has been driving the Chinese EV for the past six months, calling it “pretty good.” After flying the Xiaomi Speed Ultra 7 (SU7) from Shanghai to Chicago, Farley does not want to give it up.
It's no secret that China dominates the EV industry, except for Tesla. Farley recently sounded the alarm, calling China's EV makers an “existential threat” to the industry.
A Ford executive was shocked after visiting China earlier this year. Farley warned competitors that if they fail to keep up with the Chinese, “then 20% to 30% of your revenue is at risk.”
“As the CEO of a company that had a problem competing with Japan and South Korea, we have to fix this problem,” Farley explained at a conference in February.
Farley praised Chinese EVs, calling BYD's cheapest electric car, the Seagull, “excellent.” Starting at less than $10,000 (69,800 yuan), BYD's Seagull has topped the sales charts in China for the past few months. BYD sold about 43,500 units of the Seagull in China last month alone.
Ford CEO test drives Chinese EV for six months
Now, Ford's CEO is testing another Chinese EV. You have The Fully Charged Podcast On Monday, Farley said he was driving Xiaomi's first self-developed electric car, the SU7, and “didn't want to give it up.”
While everyone has been talking about the now-cancelled Apple Car, Xiaomi's car is on the road today, and it's “pretty good,” according to Farley.
Ford flew the Xiaomi SU7 model from Shanghai to Chicago. After driving it for six months, Ford's CEO “doesn't want to give it up.”
Farley called Xiaomi “an industry juggernaut,” saying it's “a much stronger consumer product than the car companies.”
This company sells “10,000, 20,000 per month. They're on sale for six months,” Farley said on the podcast.
A Ford executive later added that the company switched to smaller, more affordable EVs after realizing that “the Ford plant will have a very difficult time competing with BYD.”
The company “needed a bottom line” to compete. Ford has a “skunkworks” team full of former Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, and Apple talent developing what is promised to be one of the world's most efficient EV platforms.
Farley said his badge doesn't work at this facility either, adding, “It's just as extreme as we needed it to be to compete with BYD.”
Even competitors like Volkswagen, with its MEB platform, are still working with Chinese OEMs “because they couldn't do it,” Farley explained.
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