Jim FarleyAfter visiting China and being scared and impressed in equal measure by the Asian country’s lead with electric cars, he ordered several Chinese models to be brought to Ford’s headquarters. Among them the Xiaomi SU7a zero-emissions that garnered 90,000 reservations in the first 24 hours of its launch.
This sedan from the technology giant It has been the personal car of the Ford CEO for half a year and has admitted that he will be very sorry to have to return it. He has been absolutely captivated by this model. Which is a great metaphor for the advantage of Chinese brands over Western ones if we talk about electric cars.
“They are years ahead of us”
Farley, interviewed by Robert Llewellynhost of the Fully Charged podcast, was sincere in this regard, praising a model of Chinese competition, which after the aforementioned visit he considers a worrying threat.
“I drive the Xiaomi. We brought one from Shanghai, and I’ve been driving it for six months. I don’t want to give up on him. It’s fantastic“, confessed the president of the oval brand.
He did not detail which of the three versions has been this favorite mount that he has resorted to daily. The Xiaomi SU7 is already a 299 HP electric car in its cheapest option, with a single motor and a 73.6 kWh battery with which it approves 700 km of autonomy (in the Chinese approval cycle, less demanding than the WLTP ).
It pairs it with extremely advanced connectivity and assistance technology, and above all, maintaining a very reasonable price: part of about 27,700 euros to change. The range is completed with the Pro, with identical mechanics but with a 94.3 kWh battery that gives it 830 km, and the Max, with two motors, no less than 673 HP and 800 km of range.
The latter starts at 38,500 euros. To put it in context, the Porsche Taycan is much less powerful and the German starts at 105,682 euros. It is also more affordable in its local market than the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the darling of Ford’s electric cars, which in its base 269 HP option has a price of more than 49,000 euros.
“existential threat.” The Xiaomi one is not the first Chinese electric model that Farley has tasted: on that trip he did the same with a car from the Changan company together with John Lawler, Ford’s financial director. “Jim, this isn’t like before,” Lawler told Farley. “These guys are ahead of us.”
Farley’s visit to China set off the manager’s alarms by the abyss that separates Western firms from Chinese ones. “This is an existential threat,” he later said at a brand meeting.
So much so, that it has motivated the change in Ford’s strategy towards electric vehicles, as other traditional firms are also doing. “Executing at the level of Chinese standards will be the most important priority.” In addition to bring models from China to analyze them in detail, Ford is rethinking its future electric cars.
For example, it has canceled the huge SUVs that it considers will not be profitable to focus on a new platform for smaller and cheaper models. A line precisely aimed at competing with Chinese brands, which manage to keep their prices tight even outside the People’s Republic by offering high technology and very attractive designs.
The European tariffs on Chinese zero emissions are precisely a consequence of this concern of the industry from the West, with the penetration of the Asians reaching rates that they consider alarming. The expansion of BYD or MG is a good example of this.
And that Xiaomi’s newly launched automobile division is not exactly profitableat least for now. Despite the notable success of the Xiaomi SU7, which has run out of stock and is believed to exceed 100,000 deliveries in November, the firm lost $252 million in the second quarter of this year. It is estimated that Xiaomi has lost about 8,500 euros per car delivered.
But Ford itself is in a worse situation: the oval’s electric division lost $1.1 billion on 24,000 zero-emission models sold, the equivalent being much higher.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
