Ford Motor Company President and CEO Jim Farley said that taking apart cars from Tesla and Chinese rivals “humbled” and “shocked” him. The discovery he said led to a shakeup at the American carmaker, as per a Business Insider report.
Speaking on the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast, the business leader said that the shock pushed him to make big changes to make Ford competitive against Tesla and electric vehicle (EV) makers from China.
What was Jim Farley's humbling, shocking discovery?
According to Farley, while taking apart competitors vehicles (a standard practice in the auto industry), Ford found that Tesla's Model 3 had around 1.6 km of wiring less than Ford's Mustang Mach-E. The numbers were similar when compared to Chinese EV makers, he added.
“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,” he said. Farley added that the findings galvanised changes at Ford, which has in recent years struggled in the highly competitive auto market.
The company in 2022 created its Model E division, to drive innovation in EVs. In 2024, the division has cost the company $5 billion, as per a Fortune report. But, Farley said that he saw this as a challenge to overcome.
“My ethos is, take on the hardest problems as fast as you can and do it sometimes in public because you’ll solve them quicker that way,” he stated.
Ford doubles down on EVs
On the future of EV, Farley felt that Ford cannot walk away from the segment. “We can’t walk away from EVs, not just for the US, but if we want to be a global company, I’m not going to just cede that to the Chinese,” Farley said on the podcast.
This is evident in the company's business moves. In August 2025, the company said it would allocate $5 billion to EV production, this would include changing its manufacturing process and revamping its Kentucky plant, the Fortune report added.
Ford's Kentucky plant produces the company's F-Series Super Duty trucks. The plan is to have the facility manufacture Ford's $30,000 electric pickup truck, scheduled for release in 2027, it added.