Ford CEO says taking apart Tesla, Chinese EVs was shocking forcing him to overhaul company

Ford CEO Jim Farley said he got so humbled by the competition that he realized he needed to overhaul his company or risk falling behind.The auto executive admitted on Tuesday that he was “very humbled” when Ford tore apart its first Model 3 and started dismantling Chinese electric vehicles, discovering what he called “shocking” differences that forced the company to completely rethink how it builds cars.The wake-up call came when Ford engineers compared the Mustang Mach-E — the number two bestselling EV in the country at the time — to Tesla’s Model 3.What they found was brutal, according to the chief executive.“I was very humbled when we took apart the first Model 3 Tesla and started to take apart the Chinese vehicles.

When we took them apart, it was shocking what we found,” Farley told the “Office Hours: Business Edition” podcast on Tuesday.The Mach-E’s wiring loom — the bundle of electrical wires, connectors and protective coverings that carry power and signals throughout a vehicle — was 1.6 kilometers longer than Tesla’s, Farley told the “Office Hours: Business Edition” podcast on Tuesday.That extra copper added 70 pounds of dead weight to the Mustang.Since every pound in an EV costs money in battery capacity, that bloated wiring harness was costing Ford an extra $200 per battery just to haul it around, according to Farley.That’s when he realized that Ford had “even more catchup to do” and that companies using traditional equipment were “really far behind.”“All the math changes with an EV with that huge expensive battery.”The eye-opening revelations that resulted from dismantling competitor models were a major driver behind Ford’s decision in 2022 to split the company into Model E — the EV vision — and the Blue and Pro businesses.Farley believed Ford needed a new division and a new governance structure because the EV business is fundamentally different.The move has been costly.

The Model E division lost more...