This time, Bill Ford said, they're going to be ready.
Ford, executive chairman of Ford (F) and great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, acknowledged that right now the US is not ready to compete with China on the production of electric vehicles.
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But he says that's going to change.
"They developed very quickly, and they developed them in large scale," Ford told CNN's Fareed Zakaria. "And now they're exporting them. They're not here but they'll come here, we think, at some point. We need to be ready, and we're getting ready."
The numbers coming out of China are pretty impressive.
Leading the Global EV Landscape
China’s electric vehicle exports are expected to almost double this year, helping the nation overtake Japan as the biggest car exporter worldwide, the South China Post reported.
The country's EV shipments are expected to reach 1.3 million units in 2023, according to an estimate by market research firm Canalys, versus 679,000 units in 2022 as reported by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
"Having recognized the potential of electric vehicles 15 years ago, China has since invested vast resources in building a competitive electric vehicle ecosystem," the financial services company Allianz said in a report last month.
As a result, the report said, "China now leads the global EV landscape, selling over double the number of BEVs in 2022 compared to Europe and the US combined, while also holding a competitive edge in nearly all aspects of the BEV value chain."
China's rapid advancements in electric vehicles are transforming its domestic market, Allianz said, where foreign automakers have traditionally held a dominant position.
China as 'Main Competitor'
"They're already going to Europe and they're growing very fast in Europe," Ford said.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said last month that Chinese electric vehicle makers are its main rivals in the sector and that Ford needs distinctive branding or lower costs to beat Chinese automakers.
"I think we see the Chinese as the main competitor, not GM or Toyota," he said, according to Reuters. "The Chinese are going to be the powerhouse."
Ford said that the company has "an all hands on deck" approach to its Chinese competitors.
"We learned a lot," he said. "When I looked back at when the Japanese came to America. We weren't ready. Then the Koreans came and we really weren't ready."
"Well, guess what?" Ford added. "It's going to happen again and we are going to be ready this time because we're acutely aware of not what not being ready we'll do to us."
