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"what scares ford's ceo in china?" recently, the wall street journal published an article describing that ford motor ceo jim farley was "shocked" by the strength of china's electric vehicle industry after visiting china many times.the boss, who is passionate about racing and knows cars like the back of his hand, clearly pointed out that chinese electric vehicle companies have stood out in the global competition with their excellent technology, low-cost supply chain and quick response.

why is china's electric vehicle industry rising? some western politicians always believe that chinese brands "steal" technology and then gain a competitive advantage by accepting government subsidies, so trade protection is needed to achieve "fair competition."but in fact, the rise of china's electric vehicle industry is not fundamentally different from the past success of western car companies.

western countries have been working hard on the technology of fuel vehicles for nearly a hundred years, and have accumulated a wealth of experience and patents through innovation, forming a strong competitive advantage.facing the wave of automobile electrification, many western automakers believe that this is just an "improvement" of the power system and have not really invested in system innovation. however, in the eyes of many chinese automakers, electric vehicles are not simply a change from "burning oil" to "consuming electricity", but the electrification of the power system gives the entire vehicle an opportunity to move towards intelligent driving.in order to take advantage of this trend, chinese automakers have gradually built a complete innovation system from the bottom up, from the bottom-level technology research and development to the upper-level application integration. as jim farley observed during his visit to china, the technologies used by chinese electric vehicle manufacturers in artificial intelligence systems, autonomous driving technology, and smart cockpit experience are "completely different from existing american technologies." obviously, this "difference" does not come out of thin air. it is based on the company's own strategic vision and accurate judgment of market development trends, as well as the hard work and sweat of countless chinese researchers and engineers who have worked hard and studied for a long time.

after achieving results in underlying technological innovation, using cost advantages to achieve market expansion is also a common practice for western automakers.it is precisely because henry ford, the founder of ford, invented the first "assembly line" in 1913, that a complete ford model t rolled off the assembly line every three minutes, and tens of thousands of ordinary people were able to drive their own cars; it is precisely because of the implementation of "lean manufacturing" with a highly coupled supply chain, successfully eliminating overproduction and inventory waste, that toyota has long had a reputation for "good quality and low price" around the world... from raw material supply to parts manufacturing, to vehicle assembly, the chinese market is huge, with many application scenarios, and there is very sufficient competition among suppliers, which has led to continuous cost reductions while steadily improving quality, gradually forming a synergistic effect for the entire industrial ecosystem, creating a cost advantage for electric vehicles, and accelerating the expansion of chinese electric vehicles in the international market.

in this process, china's industrial chain is not "eating alone", but is closely cooperating with the wave of globalization and sharing the dividends of domestic development with the world.for example, tesla's car manufacturing relies on integrated die-casting, a key technology. musk approached the world's five largest die-casting machine companies but was rejected. finally, he relied on a hong kong company to successfully develop and mass-produce it. another example is volkswagen's local automotive software development was difficult. after the new ceo vigorously strengthened cooperation with chinese companies, volkswagen's automotive intelligence level began to improve rapidly... just as a large number of joint ventures brought funds, technology and new business management models into the country in the early days of reform and opening up, promoting the upgrading of china's automobile industry, the current cost advantage of china's automobile industry chain is also a constructive force for global automobile development. achieving win-win results through cooperation is in the real interests of the world's automobile companies.

in fact, it’s not that foreign car companies don’t understand this truth, but many politicians choose to stick to “pride and prejudice” for their own selfish reasons. some time ago, in order to solve the problem of supporting automotive power batteries, ford planned to spend 3.5 billion us dollars to cooperate with catl to build a power battery factory in michigan, usa. as a result, the plan quickly activated the showmanship of a group of "anti-china" performance politicians on capitol hill, demanding that jim farley stop the construction of the project. as for where ford should find high-quality and low-cost batteries to participate in the competition, no one cares. this shows that compared with the efforts of chinese car companies,many times, short-sighted politicians are the culprits that have caused the local automobile industry to fall into the quagmire. on this basis, wielding the "tariff stick" and "supply cut stick" indiscriminately will only bring humiliation to themselves.

no matter how the anti-china forces manipulate us, the strength of china's electric vehicles is there. we welcome more foreign friends to come and see for themselves and find opportunities for common development.

source: beijing daily client

process editor: u070