Ford CEO Jim Farley has spoken at length about Chinese vehicles in recent years, and for good reason – he sees them as an existential threat to The Blue Oval’s business, given how far they’ve come in recent years. Chinese automakers have invested greatly in making more competitive products, and those investments are beginning to pay off as companies like BYD continue to expand rapidly not only in their home market, but also, other parts of the world.
While speaking at the 2025 Aspen Ideas Festival, Farley once again touched on the subject of Chinese vehicles, stating that “their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the west.” It’s yet again an interesting admission from the executive, who spent some time in China a while back and returned to the U.S. quite impressed with what domestic automakers there are doing.
Farley previously stated that Chinese vehicles “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 digital life is mirrored in the car, you have an AI companion that you can talk to – Chat GPT equivalent in China. All your automatic payment is already there, you can buy movie tickets – it has facial recognition so it knows who’s in which seat.”
Meanwhile, it’s no secret that Ford has faced its fair share of issues with initial quality in recent years, resulting in a record-setting number of recalls being issued in the first half of 2025 alone. Many of those recalls are being doled out as a way to take care of problems from past model years and improve customer service, but on the flip side of the coin, one of the automaker’s Chinese joint-ventures – Changan Ford – has long ranked near the top in terms of initial quality in that country.
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Exactly how long has Farley been on BYD’s payroll?
Why is he still “working” at Ford?
Not BYD, but on the CCP’s payroll.
I’m amused that he’s still singing and dancing the praises of Xiaomi SU7 after 3 college girls were burnt alive in one earlier this year.
So Farley admits that he can’t do the job at Ford – and the leader of the company with the largest number of recalls ever reported in a partial-year is saying he surrenders to the Chinese.
Maybe if he’d stop praising others and get his behind to work at Ford there would be better outcomes.
What are you doing about it Mr. Farley?
Sounds like he wants to work for China. Go for it. When you change a vehicles configuration like the F series trucks, EVERY YEAR, no wonder quality goes down the crapper. No time to wait for issues to come up because by next years model, it’s too late.
Ford quality is worse than stellantis now
In the 2025 JD Power initial quality survey, Ford is ranked 13th out of 30, which is considered “average”. Ram is 21, Jeep is 28, and Chrysler is 29. Dodge is not shown.
I wish Jim would focus on fixing the problems instead of going off racing.
Put some heat on the suppliers and tell them to quit selling us crap that breaks after 10,000 miles.
Where did you get that figure?
I’d take a Yugo over any new Ford.
I just wanna’ know – is Ford still selling Pintos?
Sandy Munro has been saying this for years, he’s been talking about how the domestics wouldn’t listen mired in old think that allowed the Japanese to surpass them, the Koreans to surpass them and now the Chinese. Farley shouldn’t be surprised at all nor should anybody be surprised when the domestic auto industry goes the way of the English auto industry. The same thing happened as it declined into irrelevance. The best somebody can hope for at this point is that say Ford or Cadillac or Chevrolet gets picked up by somebody like Toyota and exists going forward as a brand in a portfolio because some segments like F150, Mustang, and Corvette have enough value they are worth keeping in production.
He is wrong!
The Nautilus that was made in Canada was much better quality than the one they imported from China. There is a brake recall that they haven’t had a fix for all year. Many lemon law buy backs on the Chinese units.
What brake recall are you talking about? There was a recall on some 2023 models and Ford has been fixing them.
2024 and 2025 Nautilus brake noise coming from the front rotors they can’t fix.
Having better quality than Ford isn’t all that hard, Jim.
A CEO that is willing to see the competition accurately is able to lead more effectively. At least Farley is not burying is head in the sand. It takes courage to come out a make this quality observation public. Someone needs to wake-up Ford to regain their past competence!
The naysayers may be proven right if they find Farley decides to lead a new Chinese company or if he is found to be on-the-take in the future, but I am giving this Ford CEO the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Farley isn’t taking the easy route to maintain popularity. He’s taking the hard route to make Ford a better company.
When is the 2026 new Ford Recall car coming out ? Farley needs to get Fords Sh,” together and make it a proud company again
Well folks…now that we’re done bashing Ford and other legacy manufacturers, lets consider another side of the equation. How about building your manufacturing system around a current product like…let’s say, EV’s. Do you think that quality, efficiency, et. al. would be higher if your manufacturing facility was designed specifically for manufacturing a certain product? Well, of course it would. Now, let’s consider adapting a new product, to an existing manufacturing model. Mmm, sounds a bit more complicated doesn’t it? That’s because it is! So, yes there will be more growing pains as compromises and adjustments that have to be continually adapted to. Think about it.
Chinese vehicles are the Communist Party’s dream. They are total surveillance machines providing real-time surveillance of everything and everyone inside and outside of the vehicle. I loath the fact that this is where all vehicles are headed.
Having owned a few Ford vehicles – and driven many more – during the last 40 years, I find it difficult to imagine that Chinese vehicle quality could be worse, on average. Although I don’t advertising know – not being the CEO of a major U.S. corporation, I cannot chose to have a BYD automobile as my daily driver.
Argh, Samsung’s cell phone virtual keyboard app auto-mangle “feature” strikes again. That last sentence should begin with: Although I don’t ACTUALLY know…
How long he is Ford CEO ? And the problems are growing, quality is worse and no one from Ford family make this guy resigned !
Thanks to Failure Farley, Chinese vehicles have higher quality than Ford Motor Company vehicles, this will always be the case as long as Failure Farley is in charge.
Those “features” sound like a dystopian h*llscape. Hard pass. When is Ford gonna boot that chump?
Jim Farley is the existential threat to the blue oval. How did he get installed into this position. This guy would lose money on a garage sale! I bet he doesn’t know how to change a flat tire. Spoiled little rich boy given a big important job that he has no idea how to do
How does this guy still have a job?