In a fascinating interview with Robert Llewellyn of Fully Charged, Ford CEO Jim Farley clearly described the challenge facing legacy auto manufacturers in North America—and Europe for that matter in moving to EVs. (See Ford CEO Jim Farley’s Fascinating ‘Take’ On Taking On Chinese Car Companies on the Everything Electric Show.)
Ford has stumbled badly in its transition to EVs, but Farley gets it, and understands what needs to be done. Ford has three entries in the EV sweepstakes (F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-e, and the Transit van) and all three have earned high marks from car people. Yet they’re expensive and have yet to break into mass adoption.
Farley has made several trips to China to study the EV market and currently drives a Chinese EV. He quickly puts the Chinese market into perspective.
There are some 90 million cars built worldwide every year and the Chinese build fully one-third of those. Worse, Chinese manufacturers have the capacity to build 60 million vehicles per year or two-thirds of world production!
If North American and European manufacturers don’t get their act together, the Chinese are going to eat their lunch.
For that reason, Farley has set up a “skunkworks” in California to develop its next generation EVs. The goal is to compete with the Chinese. Tariffs will only keep them out of the North American market for a short time.
Farley believes Ford is making the right moves. He said Ford will sell more hybrid F150s this year than Toyota will sell of the Prius. Importantly, Ford’s Lightning and hybrid F150 have power off take, enabling V2H or vehicle to home—a feature that the Prius lacks.
What Farley loves about EVs is they bring back the joy of driving.
That’s what I learned the first time I hopped into an EV. And even though that EV was an early limited range Nissan Leaf, it was fun to drive. Since then I’ve never looked back.
