How does America beat China? Find the secret to Chinese battery tech and do it better! Ford boss's bold plan to take on BYD, Geely, Xiaomi, MG and more: Report

Ford needs to find out how Chinese battery makers produce such outstanding batteries and then become better at it for the company’s survival, the company’s global boss said recently.

Speaking to Thomas L Friedman in his New York Times Opinion piece Ford CEO and President Jim Farley said Chinese battery makers were at least 10 years ahead, producing batteries which could charge fast and offer such long ranges at lower costs.

Farley said the way for Ford to be competitive is to discover the secret to Chinese batteries then become even better at the tech.

“So, the way we compete with them is to get access to their IP just the way they needed ours 20 years ago, and then use our innovative ecosystem and American ingenuity and our great scale and our intimacy with the customer to beat them globally, " he told The New York Times.

"It will be one of the most important races to save our industrial economy.”

The event from 20 years ago Farley's referencing is to do with battery tech developed by companies in the US. Back in the 1990s, researchers at the University of Texas had discovered lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry.

The car industry didn’t really think much of the finding given that combustion engines were still king, while electric vehicles were almost non-existent and seemed a long way from going mainstream.

Still a US start-up company called A123 Systems attempted to commercialise LFP batteries but nobody could be convinced the tech was a necessary, applicable or even a worthwhile investment.

Apart from China’s biggest auto parts company Wangxiang, that is, which bought the LFP tech from an almost bankrupt A123 Systems for about A$500 million in 2014.

Skip forward 10 years and LFP is the chemistry of choice for battery electric cars because of its comparative low cost, ability to withstand repetitive rapid charging, outstanding range and life-span. 

The LFP industry is now colossal, valued at US$18.7 billion in 2024 according to Global Market Insights. And that’s expected to grow by 17 per cent by 2034.

Farley’s plan to play catch up by doing what Wangxiang did a decade ago could work even though the company has only a handful of EVs on the market.

In Australia, the only Ford EVs consumers can buy are the Mustang Mach-E SUV and Ford Transit van. At the end of last year Ford decided to reverse its decision to bring an electric version of its Puma small SUV to Australia.

Meanwhile, brands such as BYD with its Atto 3, MG with the MG4 and the Chinese-built Tesla Model Y are dominating the electric car space in Australia.

In the United States, the Chinese car makers have not arrived yet, and Farley hopes this will buy him time. Trump's proposed tariffs may help Ford, too.

Ford has invested heavily in battery production having just completed its 15 square kilometre BlueOval city battery manufacturing plant in Tennessee.

Farley is also particularly enamoured by Chinese EVs. CarsGuide reported last year that he had imported a vehicle from carmaker Xiaomi — an SU7 — and had become quite attached to it.     

“I don’t like talking about the competition so much, but I drive a Xiaomi. We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago and I’ve been driving it for six months now, and I don’t want to give it up,” he said in an Everything Electric Show interview.

Recently the CEO announced that Ford wanted to be “the Porsche of off-road” and declared that the company would focus on making exciting all-terrain performance vehicles more like the Ranger Raptor.

It’s difficult to tell what Ford will do next, but what is certain is that its boss seems willing to try anything right now.