- Ford imported a Xiaomi SU7 from Shanghai to Chicago, the place CEO Jim Farley has been driving at spherical for months.
- The Xiaomi SU7 is bought out for the remainder of the 12 months in China, with all 100,000 models spoken for.
- Xiaomi plans to additional develop within the EV market with a crossover within the close to future. It may additionally introduce a range-extended EV with a gasoline motor, and a low-cost hatchback.
It looks as if increasingly more American automotive CEOs are beginning to perceive simply how “cooked” American firms are within the face of superior rivals from China. This week, Ford CEO Jim Farley dropped a bombshell on a podcast; he’s been driving an imported Xiaomi SU7 sedan from China round Chicago for six months. He referred to as the automobile implausible, and he doesn’t wish to give it up. That is the second producer we all know of that has imported an SU7 to guage. A couple of weeks in the past RJ Scaringe introduced one into the nation, too.
This week, Farley did a 40-minute lengthy podcast on the The whole lot Electrical Present, the place he mentioned Ford’s future and what he skilled in China. The Xiaomi SU7 was one of many massive “epiphanies” that Farley had, recognizing simply how far off he and different Western producers had been when it got here to China. “Within the West, our cellular phone firms aren’t into automobiles, they don’t have automobile firms. However in China, each Huawei and Xiaomi are inside each automobile that’s made,” stated Farley.
Farley admitted that his journeys to China and expertise with the Xiaomi made Ford actually go into deep considered what the corporate must do subsequent. “Everybody’s speaking in regards to the Apple Automobile, however the Xiaomi automobile…The [Xiaomi SU7] exists, and it’s implausible. They promote 10,000, 20,000 a month they usually’re bought out for six months. That may be a shopper model that’s a lot stronger than automobile firms,” stated Farley. Farley’s revelation has had a mini viral second in China, based on Chinese language EV analyst and skilled Lei Xing.
Farley is talking on what I, and different journalists, pundits and EV and China consultants have seen for fairly some time now: China’s tech and automotive industries are much more interconnected than the automotive and tech industries within the West. The Xiaomi SU7, on its face, is solely one other product in Xiaomi’s vary of shopper electronics and cell telephones. Xiaomi’s automobile makes use of the identical working system as its telephones and tablets; equipment for the automobile could be bought in the identical retailer the place you’d purchase a cellphone. Equally, Huawei’s Concord OS is shortly permeating the Chinese language automobile trade, as Huawei provides full-stack software program options for smaller manufacturers tired of making their very own. Geely by and enormous doesn’t use Huawei or Xiaomi’s software program, as a result of it purchased a complete cellular phone firm (Meizu) that developed Flyme Auto.
We sort of have that with Google’s Android Automotive, however from what I (and sure Farley) have skilled, it simply isn’t at the moment on the identical degree as Chinese language EV tech when it comes to integration and refinement. China’s tech trade and automotive manufacturers have joined palms, and they’re transferring in lockstep.
“I can’t unlearn the truth that the Detroit Three by no means actually had a plan,” stated Farley, referring to the inroads that Toyota and Honda made within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties within the U.S. American firms had been gradual to adapt to the newfound competitors. “And we’re not going to overlook this one. This one, we’re going to should get it proper from scratch,” Farley continued. He stated that Ford realized that it might have a tough time competing with manufacturers like BYD, thus it wanted to start out from scratch with a complete new ground-up strategy. Which, is the place Ford’s skunkworks-like staff for its low-cost EVs got here from.
The entire podcast could be very intriguing to hearken to. Will Ford be capable of compete? It isn’t clear. By Farley’s personal admission, Ford has to get it proper the primary time it tries. China has such an enormous lead on the remainder of the world, it would take lots of work to catch up. Recognizing that, it is not shocking that Farley does not wish to hand over the keys to his Xiaomi simply but.
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