Ford CEO Jim Farley’s proverbial love affair with China’s dominance in auto manufacturing is well documented. He admitted in 2024 that he daily drove a Xiaomi SU7 daily for six months, telling the press he didn’t want to give it back because he liked it so much. In October, he expounded on the fact that if given the ability to sell cars in the U.S., China could “put us all out of business” due to their manufacturing speed and superior tech.
Sales of Chinese cars outside of the U.S. reflect that worry. Back in 2011, 67% of cars sold in China were from foreign brands like Volkswagen. Now, though, two-thirds of cars sold in the country come from domestic brands such as Geely and BYD, according to Car and Driver. It’s not just in China where that growth is apparent, either. In Europe, sales of Chinese brands are nearing 10% of the market, per Automotive News.
This progress is inching up against America’s borders, too. Chinese cars make up nearly 20% of new car sales in Mexico right now, according to Mexico News Daily. And thanks to new regulatory changes, Chinese cars are set to flood the Canadian market as soon as next year.
Farley isn’t stupid, obviously. He sees how much more quickly Chinese automakers can develop a vehicle, ramp up production, and increase manufacturing capacity. And because of that, he has immense respect for them. From a recent episode of the Rapid Response podcast:
If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla—they’ve been doing great, but they don’t really have an updated vehicle. The best in business for us, cost-wise, competition-wise, supply chain-wise, manufacturing expertise, the IP in the vehicle, was really BYD.
Farley spoke on how BYD inspired Ford to use China’s approach to affordability and use it on the segment it knows best: pickup trucks. According to him, China’s success was a main driver behind Ford’s decision to build its very hyped $30,000 electric pickup truck. From the podcast:
Now, if we’re smart, we’ll take the cost competitiveness of BYD, and then we’ll compete with that platform in parts of the market where we know our customers really well. This next cycle of EV customers in the US? They want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles, but they want it at $30,000, not $50,000 like the first inning. They want it affordably.
That $50,000 vehicle he’s talking about is, of course, the F-150 Lightning, the all-electric version of Ford’s iconic pickup. While the truck made a big initial splash, its higher price meant it never really moved the needle in terms of sales (despite being the best-selling electric truck when it left production). Ford had to halt production in September due to an aluminum fire plant, and never bothered to restart the line. Instead, it pivoted the Lightning to an EREV powertrain vehicle, which is set to launch next year.
The affordability crisis hitting people across the globe means China’s ability to offer modern electric cars stuffed with tech and range for reasonable prices is more important than ever. Farley points out, as he has in the past, that China’s government provides both direct and indirect subsidies to ensure its domestic brands have the edge on price. He also says that China has the capacity to build enough cars to supply all of North America if it needed to.
If there’s one quote from Farley in this interview that stands out the most, it’s this one:
That is the gift that China gave us: To be fearful and respectful enough of their progress that we could not organically just phone it in. We need to use innovation to compete against the best in the world.
It feels like we might be heading to a situation where there might be two car markets in the future: The United States and everyone else. America’s stance on effectively barring Chinese cars from sale in the U.S. means that, theoretically, domestic manufacturers don’t have to worry about more advanced cars from China moving in and taking sales. More lax rules on emissions mean that automakers on this side of the pond no longer have to strive for efficiencies and can continue to offer vehicles with the big engines that people want.
The reality is, though, that it’ll result in less competitive cars from domestic manufacturers, both for American consumers and export markets, such as Canada and Mexico. As a result, that means Chinese cars can swoop in and snipe that market share, driving down the relevance of American automakers. My colleague Matt has written about this in the past in greater detail; I highly encourage you to read his take on it.
Thanks to Farley’s respect for China, Ford is one of the few outliers that’s taking the threat seriously, at least going by his statements. Ford can—and does—sell F-150s in America all day long and make a huge profit from it, but without keeping up with China, it could lose out everywhere else.
Top graphic images: Ford; BYD
The best thing that Ford could do is fire that clueless hack.
He’s going to destroy the company.
LOL he didn’t learn that 20 years ago when he worked for Toyota? Farley literally has Toyota in his resume but learned NOTHING.
Remember that Chris Farley skit throwing the guy in a dumpster? Well, his cousin Jimbo says, “that’s what we do to engineers!”
This dickwad tried to secretly backdoor Chinese cars into the USA and couldn’t figure it out apparently from the latest reports.
NEWS FLASH FOR ALL THE CEO’S. You will not be able to replicate the Chinese car push. And you can’t because CHINA did it, not BYD, not any other company, but the CCP itself. They were given every opportunity and push from the government. You are not going to get that here and you shouldn’t get that here, at least not without some HUGE changes to how our OEM’s conduct business.
NEWS TO THE COMENTORS WHO THINK THEY CAN: Read above. Yes there has been huge greed in our companies, but there is in every large company, and most small ones!
Now we have over saturation and tons of e-waste from this push, but Brian and Co here still keep the praise strong.
Our OEMs have decided instead to continuously pander to a walled garden, and to prioritize short-term profits over being globally competitive. But, it’s ok, we’ll just get a fresh news cycle to stoke more fear and build up more walls of us-vs-them. It’s rather self-fuelling and self-fulfilling.
I can do without the CAPS; it reads poorly like you refuse to hear anything that might disrupt your narrative. Thank you for your attention on this matter.
“And thanks to new regulatory changes, Chinese cars are set to flood the Canadian market as soon as next year”
Sales will be initially limited to 49,000 units… out of a market of about 1.9 million annual sales… about 2.5 percent of the market. I wouldn’t call that “flooding the Canadian Market”
And part of the reason for this Chinese car deal is the fact that the legacy car makers have been collectively dragging their asses on BEVs… especially affordable ones.
Even Tesla cancelled their affordable sub-Model 3 car program… though they have reinstated that program apparently.
And the fact is, the political climate in Canada these days is such that the majority of Canadians want to reduce our dependence on US-based products and services.
As Ford’s “affordable” electric Universal Vehicle Platform… I’m reserving judgement on it until I see some product on sale that uses that platform… and how well it does in real-world reviews.
And I hope Ford plans on using that platform to make some competitive CAR offerings… like a new Focus hatchback.
Not everybody wants a goddamn pickup truck or SUV.
Best I can do is a 20-year old Durango with a HEMI
I’m calling BS on this. The Japanese did the same thing in the 70’s and the Koreans did it in the 2010’s. Neither time Ford has learned a thing, and been deeply complacent in their technology, designs, and quality. They have been bailed out decade after decade by tribalist truck buyers who will only buy American full-sized trucks and SUVs regardless of what is going on around them.
Ford’s current lineup consists of overwhelmingly mediocre crossovers and large trucks that are just compelling enough, yet unreliable and problematic to own. Farley acts like this is a unique revelation that he has had, and that this has changed Ford. We’re years into “Quality being Job Number One” and yet Ford continues to be the industry leader in recalls, unreliability, and and inability to design cars that are serviceable.
I mean based on Fords reliability record the last decade or so they definitely were phoning it in for a while…
Sadly the Lightning was initally hyped as sub 40K, which was almost certainly a loss leader when that included a 300+ mile battery in a Base work truck. Like the under 20K maverick, nobody could really get one outside of a fleet sales and once demand seemed to go up as a result, they used that as the excuse to right size the pricing.
China is currently just going the route that Japan did in the 70’s, Hyundai did in the 90’s and so on. unfortunately we are more forcfully pushing against non-union and human rights abuse from Big Red, while at the same time leveling them up significantly with regards to manufacturing prowess by ignoring a lot of that elsewhere as the Jungle Website Delivers yet another gadget or trinket from that country.
Yea the thing that baffles me is that this is just textbook. Japan and Korea already swooped in using the exact same playbook. China will be next, then they’ll expand to conquest luxury marques. See Lexus, Infiniti, Genesis. The US industry is banking on cold-war style (USSR) insularity to try and stymy the market in the US. The rest of the world has spoken and is more than willing to leave the US behind.
That Ford EV truck can’t come soon enough for me. It’s really the vehicle that I’ve been waiting for and I hope that Ford doesn’t screw it up.
I would have thought the Japanese cars which hit them a generation ago would have taught them that already, but I guess some lessons need to be relearned.
The Japanese never forget
The Americans never remember.
(you can sub any country in for Japan and it still works)
Important to remember that Farley was at Toyota during that time so he’s seen how this goes from the winning side.
We can do without the ragebait on this site.
Tell the truth; this is not a “flood”: 49,000 cars out of a total Canadian market of ~1,900,000 (2025 numbers) is hardly a dribble.
ever heard the term “slippery slope”. Canada has experienced it in a few ways. Would hate to buy a house or want for a job living up there.
My sweet summer child, you need to stop getting your news from Facebook.
Please show me the cheap houses, and plentiful job market in Canada. Witty comments are not gonna convince me I’m wrong.
Edit: I just looked: Soft, but “stable” job market. No one buying houses, and prices expected to come down. So sounds like theres a chance for a house in your future if you have a job.
The new ad literally in the middle of the page that just sits there while the text scrolls behind it makes this post (and all others) unreadable. I understand the goal is to get me to become a member but if not doing so is not an option any longer (you DO get money for me looking or being exposed to the ads) then you really should jjust go to a paywall entirely, same result with less hassle. I’ll check back in a couple of days to see if the user experience has improved. Thank You.
The ads are really taking a toll on the usability of this site, the current hovering and un-closeable Sonic ad is just the most recent.
I have had the comment box hijacked repeatedly by ads popping up and lost half a comment to typing nothingness in the box whilst a never-suppressable video for the Cross-Cabriolet plays in the lower corner. We get it, the top doesn’t work.
Every time this re-loads, the text box fails.
Also, this site is slow as death to load. Is this experience limited to us freeloaders?
I run an adblocker (ghostery) and the only thing i see anymore is the crosscabriolet or wwii jeep video showing up in the corner.
No, they have made excuses about running the slowest website on the internet since launch.
I just encountered what you posted about. It wasn’t doing that last week. That floating ad in the middle of the page that obscure text rather than flowing around it is rough.
This isn’t quite as bad as the 30-second video ad for the NBA Playoffs on Peacock that blocks ALL of the text in the article until it has finished playing (in my admittedly non-fullscreen browser window). I realize internet advertising is a crapshoot in the best of circumstances, but this does NOT make me want to become a paying member. (It’s the content that does.)