A few years ago, China was derisively called all sorts of names in the auto industry. Many mainstream automakers even filed lawsuits against Chinese companies for duplication of their designs and products.
Car reviewers from Western countries had a field day insulting the hell out of Chinese automotive products.
But in a surprising twist of fate, reports from Ford indicate that Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley told The New York Times that China is years ahead when it comes to making batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and that Ford’s only chance of getting on equal footing with the country’s auto industry, and pulling ahead is to leverage their tech.
Realizing that the Chinese threat in the auto industry has become very existential, Ford now wants to head off the threats but it needs China’s own technical expertise to make it happen.
In his words, “the way we compete with them is to get access to their IP just the way they needed ours 20 years ago, and then use our innovative ecosystem and American ingenuity and our great scale and our intimacy with the customer to beat them globally. It will be one of the most important races to save our industrial economy”.
Ford is currently working on a below $30,000 EV to compete with affordable electric cars from China that haven’t yet landed in the US, but are already making their presence felt in other regions where Ford also sells cars.