Is all of this—this move to put this new platform out against this backdrop—is it enough? Is it enough to compete both here and in China?
The Chinese are, you know, the 700-pound gorilla in our industry for EVs. There's no real competition from Tesla, GM, or Ford with what we've seen from China. If you sell an affordable EV in the US for $30,000, but it costs you 50 to make it, you could say you have an affordable one, but that's not a sustainable business.
Hey everybody, it's Nilay. I took a break from Decoder last year after we had a baby. Today we're featuring an interview with Ford CEO Jim Farley conducted by Joanna Stern, who was a Wall Street Journal columnist when she did this interview but has since launched her own media company. They spoke in September, right after Ford announced a major new manufacturing process for its EV lineup. Since then, the company took a $19.5 billion write-down on its EV operation, discontinued the F-150 Lightning, and lost EV chief Doug Field. Back then, Farley saw Ford's EV future as a big gamble requiring big risks—and we're now seeing just how big those risks were. Joanna also pulled some exclusive news, including quotes about Trump's tariff policy, Chinese EV competition, and Apple CarPlay. Joanna Stern interviewing Ford CEO Jim Farley. Here we go.
Jim Farley, you are the CEO of Ford Motor Company. Welcome back to Decoder.
Hi, great to be here with you, Joanna.
So, thank you for coming on. Obviously, this is not my show—this is Nilay's show—but I want to give you some background. I listen to Decoder all the time and I love his car CEO interviews, but often I find myself saying, 'Nilay, why didn't you ask that question?' So when he asked me to do this, I said, 'That's it. I'm going to bring on car CEOs and ask the questions I want.'
And so, you were back on the show in May 2021. Things have considerably changed in the world, in technology, in the country, at Ford. And I want to talk about all of those things, but something also changed for me. In 2023, I got a Mustang Mach-E, as you know. I leased one, and that lease is up next summer. So I'll be reading about your decision process. Well, that's going to inform a lot of this conversation because I wanted to give you the chance to be the world's best car salesman to the most annoying customer. And so I think that's going to set a lot of the backdrop of this conversation.
All right. So, let's start there. Last month, you said at a press conference that the Mach-E is not so great, that it's not the future of Ford. Why should I stick with a Ford EV next time?
Well, we just won the new revised Model Y versus Mach-E drive evaluation by a pretty respected magazine. So I'm still pretty proud of the Mach-E. But we knew what we knew then five years ago, and we now know what we know now—and those are, as you said, two different things. Ford in this second inning of product development has really understood more fully the opportunity to serve the EV market differently than we did several years ago, and to execute a product with the right approach based on those lessons learned. That's both the consumer—we've learned what consumers are willing to live with and not, like charging on the fly—as well as where in the market Ford should participate and put its limited resources. And I think you're going to find that the Ford EV product range will be much sharper, more specific, more valuable to customers than it was when you last shopped.
So, let's dig into the news you just announced, which is that you have something called Ford Universal EV Platform. What is that and when is it coming? And more specifically for me, will it be out next August? And will I be able to get that kind of new Ford versus an upgrade to my Mach-E?
You'll learn a lot more about the first product—the first vehicle on this platform—by next summer. We'll be out in 2027, just a few months after that. We learned so much from the Mach-E. We've been number two to Tesla, a long way behind them, but number two in the US market in EV sales. Ford has learned a lot and served a lot of wonderful customers like you. We have all the data coming off the vehicle. The platform we shared in Kentucky last week is a breakthrough approach, we believe, to develop and deliver an affordable electric platform. We'll develop several vehicles off that platform and launch them over the subsequent few years, and we can have a profitable vehicle that's sustainable in terms of the company's resources, and make it in the US. But in order to compete with the likes of BYD, who we think are among the best in the world, we had to completely reinvent the platform. The evolution—revolution of our thinking was to develop a vehicle for manufacturability, to radically reduce the cost and complexity with all new thinking that is not embedded in a traditional car company. We needed all new talent, separate from Ford, separate from our IT solutions, separate from a philosophy standpoint about how to radically simplify the vehicle. And really get back to the basics of Ford, Henry Ford's idea of a universal car. Our first body style will be a pickup, but it's really not a pickup. It's a new silhouette. It's got more room than a RAV4, the bestselling passenger car in the US, and that doesn't include its frunk and its pickup truck bed. It is very fast, rear-wheel drive, super fun to drive, and it has a digital experience that no one's seen—even in China. I think the whole package is something that's just not been offered in the US or anywhere to date. This first product, I think, was quite revolutionary.
And this first product is what you're going to have out in 2027.
