Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Speaking at the podcast Everything Electric Show, Ford CEO Jim Farley commented on the competition in China praising established car and battery makers such as BYD but also newcomers in the EV industry such as the smartphone giant Xiaomi.
Farley said China’s battery and automotive industry “it’s not the old days where, you know, someone would copy a Western technology,” adding that “the opposite is true when it comes to battery tech and the size of the market and the government’s support for the companies”.
Ford CEO, who traveled to China twice in the last two years, noted that also the quality of the products has significantly increased and surpassed Western products “in many categories”.
“Chinese manufacturing has really been proven to so many consumers in so many consumer product categories as being fully superior quality in many cases, in many categories,” he stated.
Here’s a clip from Ford CEO Jim Farley commenting on the Chinese automotive industry
Diving deeper into the topic, Jim Farley highlighted BYD, Xiaomi and the connection consumers have between the operating systems they have on their smartphones and on their cars.
“But I’ve had two trips to China in the last two years that were literally epiphanies where I walked away… The last one was about the Xiaomi product, because in the West, our cell phone companies are not into car. They don’t have car companies. But in China, both Huawei and Xiaomi, the two biggest cell phone companies, are inside of every vehicle that is made,” Ford CEO stated.
The executive revealed he has been driving the Xiaomi SU7 for six months after exporting it from Shanghai to Chicago.
“I don’t like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi. 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,” Farley said.
Xiaomi deliveries surpassed (again) 10,000 deliveries in September as it aims to reach 120,000 deliveries this year.
He continued by saying BYD is “now much bigger than Tesla”.
“And companies like BYD, they were very small when they started their journey. They’re now much bigger than Tesla, the biggest, the biggest in the world, as you mentioned. And they’ve been on this journey for 15 years,” Farley said.
A recently leaked document from Xiaomi’s supplier Bosch revealed that Xiaomi is planning to launch two models in 2025, including the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra and its first SUV, internally codenamed MX11.
A six-seater extended-range (EREV) SUV will follow in 2026.
The tech leader launched its inaugural model in late March with deliveries starting in April 2024. For this year, Xiaomi aims to deliver 120,000 EVs —up from the previous target of 100,000 units.
For October, the company is targetting 20,000 units of the debut model SU7.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
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