Ford Canada President Says Company Paying Attention To BYD

As Ford Authority reported in late July, Chinese automaker BYD has been eyeing Canada as the next market it plans to enter after the company filed paperwork in Ottawa recently for such an endeavor. However, BYD certainly faces its fair share of challenges in that regard, ranging from regulatory obstacles to concerns over potential national security threats posed by Chinese EVs in general – not to mention higher tariffs that country is set to implement for those same vehicles. Regardless, Ford Canada is closely monitoring this situation as well.

In a recent interview with Automotive News, Ford Canada CEO Bev Goodman was asked about BYD potentially entering the market, and she admitted that the automaker is well aware of that possibility. “We need to be aware of and watching all of our competition,” Goodman said. “And there’s no doubt that BYD is a compelling, strong competitor who’s performed very well in China as well as in other markets globally. Our job as an OEM is to make great products for our Canadian customers, and that’s our plan as we go forward. And we’ll compete with any manufacturer.”

BYD is in a bit of a flux at the moment amid uncertainties pertaining to the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, as Ford Authority recently reported, and as such, has reportedly paused its plans to build a plant in Mexico – at least, temporarily. Regardless, BYD has already entered the European market, and has long been a company that Ford CEO Jim Farley has had on his radar.

These cheap Chinese EVs – plus a previous trip to China – is what inspired Farley to create a skunkworks team to develop a low-cost EV platform to compete with those models and Tesla. However, it was previously expected that a crossover would be the first to launch underpinned by that new architecture, though Ford recently revealed that it will instead arrive in a mid-size EV pickup before anything else.