The Ford CEO visited China and returned to the US with a Xiaomi car. Now he doesn’t want to get rid of it
Imagine being the CEO of a company like Ford and being able to choose a free car to drive to work every day. The F-150 Raptor would be a great option (especially in America, which loves big cars). Alternatives could also be the Mustang GT and, if you want an electric one, the Mach-E. But no: the president of Ford has been driving a Xiaomi SU7 on the streets of Chicago for six months now.
It’s not a matter of knowing the competition: he says he doesn’t want to give it up.
In search of silver I found gold.. A few months ago, Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, took a delegation to China to learn about the state of the industry. Basically, I wanted to see with my own eyes why China is eating the toast of the West with an electric vehicle, except of course the North American Tesla. For example, we have companies like BYD or SAIC that are flooding the Western market with their models even before tariffs are introduced.
In the course of his market-watching work, as we read at Electrek, Farley came across cars that surprised him, like the BYD Seagull, but it was the Xiaomi SU7 that really made him fall in love.
Xiaomi car. What are things? After years of talk about Apple’s electric car – a project that was officially canceled this year – another tech company’s car that’s getting a lot of attention is Xiaomi’s. The SU7 is a sedan aimed at the Tesla and Porsche market (why not say so, the design is very Porsche) both because of its power and because of the huge 150 kWh batteries made by CATL with a range of 1000 kilometers.
This is one of the most important parts of the company’s strategy, according to Xiaomi itself, and it took less than three years to develop. It has a lot of automation, an extremely high-tech interior with a huge HUD, it’s compatible with Apple via AirPlay and, since it has HyperOS, it also allows you to control your home devices from the car itself. And this is in China, where the Xiaomi ecosystem is huge.
He’s delighted. Let’s go back to Farley. He must have been so impressed with the Xiaomi SU7 that he had it shipped from Shanghai to Chicago, where he lives, and as he admitted on the Everything Electric Show podcast, he’s been driving a Xiaomi for the past six months. car. He also stated that he does not like to talk about the competition, but does not want to give up on it, because he believes that “it is fantastic.”
In fact, he seems to admire not only the car itself, but also the magnet that the brand can become for the user. Farley called Xiaomi “an industry giant, a much stronger consumer brand than car companies,” and it ties into the aforementioned ecosystem. Xiaomi, like other companies, can create a strong sense of belonging and make a user who already has several Xiaomi devices buy more. And now, as part of that formula, they have an electric vehicle that, despite some problems, appears to be a product that could bring the industry under control.
China poses a threat. All of this becomes most curious when you consider the intense trade war between the United States and China, which includes tariffs on foreign cars in the equation. Farley brought back more than just the Xiaomi SU7 from his trip to China. An article in The Wall Street Journal explains how the CEO instructed his executives to import several Chinese cars. The goal was to study and test what makes these models special and how they manage to sell at affordable prices.
There are other reasons for this strategy, such as hiring the services of these Chinese companies’ suppliers to create new electric vehicles, knowing how to compete in Asian markets or understanding what allows them to establish themselves in Mexico, where these Chinese cars make up 20% of sales.
Moreover, it became clear to Farley that China’s auto industry poses an “existential threat” and both Ford and Western manufacturers must step up their efforts.
Images | Xataka, Ford
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