Ford CEO admits he drives a Chinese electric vehicle and doesn't want to give it up
- Reference: 1729802707
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/24/ford_china_electric_vehicle/
- Source link:
"I don't like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi," he said in the Everything Electric Show. "We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago, and I've been driving it for six months now, and I don't want to give it up."
[1]Youtube Video
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People have been talking about an Apple car for years, he said, but Chinese telco Xiaomi has already built one and it was a very nice ride. Xiaomi and Huawei are both major players in the electric vehicle market in a way that US companies have yet to emulate, Farley suggests.
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Ford does have its finger in the electric car pie, with Farley pointing out it's the number two in the US marketplace. But when it comes to EVs, China is way ahead of Western manufacturers, he warned. Ten years ago, the Chinese government declared a policy on developing electric vehicles and batteries, and that's paying off, he opined.
"70 percent of all electric cars made on the globe are made in one country, China," he said.
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"And they're starting to specialize where they have electric vehicles for long range travel, where the charging structure is not built out. One car goes 150 to 200 miles as an all electric car, and it has a small internal combustion engine that powers the batteries. One tank of gas gives a range of up to 1,000 to 1,200 kilometers."
[6]China sets goal for local carmakers to get a quarter of their chips domestically by 2025
[7]Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi adds electric vehicle to its mobility offerings
[8]To the Banmobile! Huawei inks deal to create global high-end automotive brand
[9]China allows robo taxis – without backup drivers – in parts of two major cities
At the moment, China has a lock on the supply chain in this sector, he warned. It has the battery technology, a grip on the rare earth market needed to produce them, and enough manufacturing capacity to meet global car demand while overwhelming Western carmakers with excess supply. While waiting lists for cars do exist in China, he said, the long-term capability to outproduce rivals will be telling, he explained.
Farley likened the situation to Toyota in the 1980s, a company that he served at for about 20 years. Initially they were a tiny car company producing ugly vehicles, but now it's a major player in the automotive business. But Japan's a small country, he said, and when the Chinese scale moves into the EV market, it's got a lot more muscle.
He also predicted that EV prices are going to come down - a lot. Mainstream buyers are no longer willing to pay a premium for electric vehicles, he explained. This may explain why Tesla is so keen to get into the lower end of the EV market, as the business [10]explained on Wednesday.
There's also simplification savings to be made, he argued. EVs need 40 percent fewer parts and have fewer moving components that can go wrong. Batteries are a major factor in the cost of such vehicles, but China has the lead in intellectual property in that department, he suggested - for the moment at least.
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"That's why we created the Skunk Works team in California, because I felt like the institution of Ford would have a really tough time competing," he said. "So we needed a ground-up team with a similar approach to Kelly Johnson's SR 71 Skunk Works in California. My badge doesn't even work there. I can't even get in the building."
We'll see what Ford comes up with, but in the short and medium term, China is the player to watch in the EV space it seems. ®
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGx7AyD9okg
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZxrDhzfmiQq7f-id6OBphQAAAQ4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/17/china_sets_goal_for_local/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/xiaomi_ev_ready/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/16/huawei_smart_car_ambitions/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/08/baidu_robot_taxi_license/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/24/musk_claims_cybertruck_profitable/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZxrDhzfmiQq7f-id6OBphQAAAQ4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
:)
Love it !!!
Of course we know this is the numbers game being played.
When you want to talk up the opposition, which you hope to match, it sounds better to say 1000 km rather than 621 miles.
The real problem is that the use of ANY fossil fuel is going to be frowned upon and you will pay a larger & larger premium as time passes.
Battery technology is still not there and people in the trade still don't want to have an EV or even service an EV because the skills are in short supply and costs are high for those skills. I have been told, on the quiet, that they are not reliable and too costly to maintain.
I will use ICE based vehicles until they get too costly to run.
Wake me when the Battery technology get the boost it needs by some NEW tech that makes EV's cheaper, more reliable and have a decent range.
:)
> We'll see what Ford comes up with
We have already seen what Ford will come up with. Didn't they just get out of the smaller car sector to exclusively make tanks with enormous wheels weighing 2 tons because apparently that's what Americans want to buy? How did that go?
No manufacturer in the US wants to make affordable cars any more. They are obsessed with online services, fill their vehicles with thousands of dollars of equipment that few people want, and *certainly* don't want to pay for.
American auto companies had stopped making lower priced cars and focused on expensive ones for several reasons. One reason was the chip shortage meant that production was limited by parts availability, and so they focused on high end models with high profit margins. The other main reason was that very low interest rates, virtually zero, meant that finance costs were very low.
Both effects have gone away, and auto industry news is talking about the panic in Ford, GM, Stellantis (Chrysler), etc. that they don't have low cost models to sell.
Average selling prices of new and used cars are falling in the US. The analysis of the situation being talked about by auto industry analysts is that the people can afford and want an expensive car already have one, and the ones who either can't afford an expensive, or can afford it but aren't interesting in spending their money on a car, are holding off buying, and when they do buy, they buy the cheapest one they can find. The result is that storage lots are full of expensive cars that can only be unloaded at deep discounts.
General opinion seems to be that the auto makers need to offer low cost cars if they want to stay in the mass market. That means smaller, simpler cars without a lot of the useless crap which drives up the price.
The Chinese are already selling cars like that, in both electric and non-electric models. The danger for the American makers is that Chinese companies will gobble up the global market outside of a protected American bastion, leaving the American industry like the British auto industry of the late 20th century.
The American companies know this, and they also know that the people who dismiss the Chinese auto makers are like the ones who did the same with respect to the Japanese in the 1970s. The head of Ford knows this. The people who don't know it are people who are living in the past, just like 50 years ago with the Japanese.
"One car goes 150 to 200 miles as an all electric car, and it has a small internal combustion engine that powers the batteries. One tank of gas gives a range of up to 1,000 to 1,200 kilometers."
Sort of like buying an 1800mm piece of 4x2.