Healthy competition often breeds respect.
When two gladiators step into the same arena, they almost can't help but feel some respect for the person across from them, who is just as brave as they are.
And healthy competition can also benefit each party, if they are willing to learn the proper lessons from one another.
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Ford CEO Jim Farley is in the middle of a competition that could dictate the future of his 122-year-old company.
Model e, Ford's electric vehicle segment, has been bleeding billions of dollars for years.
It lost $5.1 billion in 2024 after losing $4.7 billion the year prior. Ford expects Model e losses to increase to $5.5 billion.
Despite the daunting outlook, Ford says that it is fully committed to its electric division.
Lisa Drake, who leads Ford's EV industrial plan, recently spoke with investors during a “candid dinner discussion” hosted by Bernstein lead automotive analyst Daniel Roeska.
“Lisa Drake was explicit: Ford intends to match the cost structure of leading Chinese players. That means not just battery pricing, but full system cost from chassis and thermal systems to inverters and electronics,” Roeska wrote.
Ford will use its Advanced Electric Vehicle program to build an EV platform that will support eight different body styles, including trucks, crossovers, and possibly sedans.
But in the meantime, Ford has to deal with China and their EV industry's lead over the U.S.
Ford CEO Jim Farley calls China's EV progress ‘humbling'
Speaking with author Walter Isaacson during a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 27, Farley said he's made as many as seven trips to China over the past year, observing the Chinese market.
What he saw left him stunned.
“It's the most humbling thing I have ever seen. Seventy percent of all EVs in the world, electric vehicles, are made in China,” Farley said, according to Business Insider.
“They have far superior in-vehicle technology. Huawei and Xiaomi are in every car. You get in, you don't have to pair your phone. Automatically, your whole digital life is mirrored in the car.”
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This type of symmetry isn't really possible in America because the big tech companies like Google and Apple “decided not to go into the car business.”
“Beyond that, their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley said.
Despite their lead in this category, Farley believes his company has no choice but to fight back.
“We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford,” Farley said.
Ford brings the fight to China with EV strategy
While Tesla has revolutionized the way Americans think about EVs, the market is still not mature.
Until recently, Tesla has dominated the U.S. market, but in recent years, its market share has dropped from 70% to 43.4% in the first quarter of 2025.
Now, newcomers from legacy car brands like General Motors and Ford are gobbling up market share as they look to knock Tesla from the top spot.
More on EVs:
- Forget Tesla, Ford is eyeing even bigger EV rivals
- Electric vehicles have one really big problem
- Tesla rival has a disappointing message for EV fans
U.S. electric vehicle sales volume jumped 11.4% year over year in the first quarter to 294,250 vehicles sold.
This jump was led by GM, which doubled its EV sales from a year ago, while Ford EV sales were up only modestly. Battery electric vehicles reached 7.5% of all new car sales in the first quarter, an improvement from a year ago, but short of the 8.7% peak reached in Q4 2024.
GM went from selling 457 EVs in Q1 2022 to nearly 32,000 in Q1 2025. After a disastrous start to the year, Tesla is basically back where it started in 2022 when it sold 129,743.
Ford went from selling 6,734 to 22,500 over the same period, but its path has been anything but straight. The company has struggled with inconsistent sales and elusive profitability.
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