Ford has made it quite clear over the past few months that it views its Chinese competition as a major threat to The Blue Oval’s business. Aside from the domestic China market, FoMoCo is also concerned about cheap Chinese EVs and the threat that they pose in other parts of the world, given the fact that they’re heavily subsidized and could allegedly pose national security threats, to boot, which is precisely why the automaker is working on a low-cost EV platform of its own. Now, Ford has been named as the company that stands to be impacted the most by its exposure to China, in general.
This news comes to us from Bloomberg, which reports that consulting firm Strategy Risks has ranked Ford first among 250 U.S. companies with an overall China exposure score of 69 out of 100 – 20 points higher than 2022, and more than double the average rating. These rankings were derived based on a variety of factors including each company’s revenue in China, partnerships with Chinese companies and the government, risks pertaining to labor and human rights, as well as supply chains, and a lack of disclosure in terms of the assessment of risks.
Currently, Ford is part of at least seven joint-ventures in China that are state-controlled, and has at least four state-influenced joint-ventures in that country, according to Strategy Risks. However, Ford says that it only has three joint-ventures currently operating in China, and released a statement in response to this report that questions its validity in general. “Given that we have no insights into the methodologies or how these rankings were made, and have significant questions about the validity of the scoring, we have nothing to contribute to the story,” the automaker said in a statement.
Currently, Ford is facing a proposed rule from the U.S. Commerce Department that would prohibit key Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles on American roads, which would effectively ban all of those types of vehicles from the U.S. – including, potentially, the Lincoln Nautilus, which is produced in China and exported to the U.S. Meanwhile, in China itself, Ford has largely given up becoming a major player and has pared down its lineup amid heated competition – problems that impact every non-domestic automaker there, it seems.
Comments
LOL, hilarious nonsense! Over 50% of Tesla sales are from their Beijing factory and they are losing EV sales and market share QUICKLY to BYD. The small EV car business is saturated in China and Tesla BY FAR has the highest exposure.
To call out ‘Ford’ as having the most exposure to China is beyond criminal, Ford used to be recently criticized for not having enough of a footprint in China. LAUGHABLE.
Wow! How on earth could anyone have foreseen that? Maybe this will finally lead to some much needed changes at the top.
Maybe FORD and others need to GET OUT of China and support US WORKERS instead, but that could cost Ford even more with how the unions are strangling Ford, GM, Chrysler. Harris want’s to tax companies MORE, yet Trump will lower taxes for those companies who come BACK to the US.