{"id":1847444,"date":"2026-03-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1847444"},"modified":"2026-03-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T21:00:00","slug":"ford-boss-jim-farley-on-the-future-no-more-generic-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1847444","title":{"rendered":"Ford boss Jim Farley on the future: “no more generic vehicles”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The locals call it a \u2018baby blizzard\u2019. It\u2019s the sort of thing that would be declared a national emergency in the UK, but Detroit powers on. Formerly America\u2019s most formidable industrial city, Motown has seen good times and, more recently, bad. But it\u2019s currently resurgent.<\/p>\n

Michigan Central Station \u2013 bought and renovated by Ford to the tune of $950m overall \u2013 is arguably the most potent symbol of this socioeconomic comeback.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Intended to be a cultural and innovation hub, it\u2019s also an events space \u2013 and events don\u2019t get much bigger than the Ford Racing launch, culminating in the unveiling of Red Bull\u2019s two-team F1 contenders for 2026. Close to 2,000 guests are expected, including Ford workers and excited locals.<\/p>\n

When the proposed Porsche deal collapsed in 2022, former Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner diverted the private jet via the US where he found Ford \u2013 and CEO Jim Farley, in particular \u2013 a receptive potential partner. Farley, a keen racer, saw huge value in reigniting Ford\u2019s dormant interests in F1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Top Gear was in Manhattan for the initial announcement. Now we\u2019re here in Michigan Central Station, three years on, for a private audience with Farley. It\u2019s 8am on the morning of the big day, and while we\u2019re blinking away the jet lag, Farley has already engaged maximum attack mode. There\u2019s showbiz in the Farley DNA, and you can tell he likes an audience. But don\u2019t mistake that for lack of focus or a deadly seriousness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gotta tell you, this PU [power unit], it\u2019s one of the hardest things we\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he says with a sigh. \u201cWe\u2019ve been out of it for a long time and when we were last in it, F1 was a whole different game. Yeah, this is really one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It may be one of the most challenging technical projects in the history of motorsport, to land all aspects \u2013 not just the performance but the driveability and reliability. I think you\u2019re going to see engineering updates every race.\u201d<\/p>\n

We stick with F1 for a moment. Ford has a limited number of personnel embedded in the Red Bull Powertrain operation in Milton Keynes, but Farley insists the deal helps tackle some of the existential issues facing all carmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to use someone else\u2019s engine, we want to go into this and solve one of the biggest problems in modern transport. We\u2019re in a different reality here now. High discharge batteries, aerodynamics, predictive failure software, software control for the hybrid system… those are the tech transfers of today, things we didn\u2019t know we could do better than F1.<\/p>\n

“I remember thinking about all the problems we would have to solve during the transformation of the company to lower CO2 drivetrain vehicles and software defined vehicles. Where were the best people? In F1.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull, of course, joins Ferrari and Mercedes in developing its own chassis and<\/em> powertrain. It\u2019s a huge challenge that a 600-strong team has been dedicated to surmounting since 2022. That pre-dates the Ford deal, but it\u2019s now a two way street. Some examples: Ford\u2019s expertise in Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS 3D printing) is helping create 12 components in the power unit.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And Ford Racing\u2019s simulation system works 1,000 times faster than real time, which is helpful in F1\u2019s tightly regulated cost cap era. Mention Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss\u2019s recent barb that it\u2019s \u201ca marketing deal with very limited impact\u201d, and Farley\u2019s demeanour visibly darkens. \u201cIt\u2019s laughable. It doesn\u2019t even merit a comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understood. Onto the bigger picture. Honestly, who would want to be a car manufacturer right now? Tariffs aside, the transition to EV continues to cause problems and has prompted a substantial rethink. Nonetheless, in the US, the company reported sales of 2.2 million vehicles in 2025, its best annual numbers since 2019. Wall Street analysts are broadly happy, with revenues likely to outpace projections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet the company finished third behind Toyota and old rival GM as the US\u2019s largest automaker, and sales of its all-electric cars were down by 14.1 per cent \u2013 52 per cent down in the fourth quarter. Indeed, 86 per cent of the company\u2019s volume last year was in combustion engined vehicles.<\/p>\n

The F-150 Lightning has been cancelled; large EVs aren\u2019t profitable, and the pivot now is to hybrids. I ask Farley to outline the new strategy \u2013 and wonder if there is mission creep.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike most global car companies, it\u2019s different by region,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the US, we just did our EV reset, and we\u2019re taking a different approach, which is a very high volume, low cost EV and we\u2019re going to go from 100,000 EVs to 300,000. We\u2019re really going big on EVs but not across the board in one particular area.<\/p>\n

“The real decarbonisation in North America is going to be our expansion on hybrids and when we start to introduce EREVs [Extended Range Electric Vehicles] for trucks. But in Europe we have a totally different strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Jim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ah yes, Europe. Time to bring the mood down again. Farley ran the Blue Oval\u2019s beloved but troubled European outpost before landing the big job in 2020. He\u2019s a \u2018car guy\u2019, so he listens patiently and nods as I wibble on about Ford\u2019s place in the warp and weft of the British automotive fabric. Sure, it made more money licensing the brand to Lego than it did making the Fiesta, but still: whither the heartland cars?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m very proud that Puma is the bestselling vehicle in the UK. We shouldn\u2019t just walk past that. And it\u2019s based on the Fiesta platform and when I ran Ford of Europe that was my car.\u201d He shifts in his seat. \u201cLook, I don\u2019t know how to simplify it other than to say we have the same aspiration in Europe with our EV strategy as we do anywhere.<\/p>\n

“Which is no more generic vehicles. People loved Focus and Fiesta because they were affordable vehicles with great driving dynamics. They were not boring vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford, of course, recently formed a \u2018major strategic partnership\u2019 in Europe leveraging Renault\u2019s Ampere platform to build two new EVs (as well as light commercial vehicles). A new Fiesta to compete with the smash hit R5? It\u2019s 1984 all over again. \u201cOur EV strategy is changing in Europe and we intend to compete differently,\u201d Farley says. \u201cThe cars will have a specific feel that is not mid-market. Even in the EV world I think that\u2019s possible, but we\u2019re going to have to take some risks.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re making passion products, this is not a marketing conversation. This is a Steve Jobs kind of conversation. I\u2019m challenging the concept that the Fiesta ST is the best example of democratised performance at Ford. Whether they\u2019re based on a VW or Renault platform, we\u2019re going to execute those cars with a swagger that\u2019s specific to Ford of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farley has also been vocal about the threat posed by the Chinese carmakers. During an ideas summit last June, he told writer and journalist Walter Isaacson that his visit to China and exposure to its in-vehicle technology was \u201cthe most humbling thing I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Battle is now joined. He tells me: \u201cTo beat BYD, you\u2019ve got to get close to them on cost and you\u2019ve got to beat them on product appeal. Look at Europe and the UK today, brands are swarming all over the market with five to six thousand euro subsidies from China. And the customers love them because they\u2019re great value. They might not \u2018speak\u2019 to you, but there are a lot of people they do speak to, and I have to figure out how to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Jim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Enter the Ford Universal EV Production System, a total rethink that\u2019s 40 per cent faster than existing processes, with fewer workstations and parts. The resulting car is presided over by Ford\u2019s chief EV, digital and design officer, former Apple and Tesla engineer Doug Field. (NB: Field began his career at Ford in 1987.) Farley lights up as he talks us through the plan, which he\u2019s famously described as a 21st century Model T moment. There is simply no stopping him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the US, we go down market, we put our most advanced level three, eyes off highways driving software into it, and we go for product appeal. So when people see it, they go, \u2018it\u2019s not a generic, affordable compliance vehicle for the government\u2019, it\u2019s actually an aspirational vehicle that kind of redoes what an EV can be as a mainstream vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do that we\u2019ve had to take a completely different approach, like Henry Ford did, on manufacturing, supply chain and engineering. So we had to radically simplify the vehicle. We kit the parts not on the side of the manufacturing system, we stuff them inside the vehicle. We make it in three separate parts, so the operator can actually be inside the car to make it.”<\/p>\n

No pause. \u201cIt\u2019s 30 per cent more efficient if you break the car up, the operator doesn\u2019t have machines to put in the instrument panel or the seats, they\u2019re actually inside it. We can radically shrink the footprint in the plant and reduce the cost. We have large unit castings in the front and rear, which massively changes the body shop.<\/p>\n

“You take massive amounts of stampings and welding out of the system. We use the battery as the floorpan, it\u2019s a structural member, and we\u2019ll have LFP [lithium iron phosphate] batteries. We have to attach the front of the vehicle in a way that no one has ever done before. No one\u2019s ever built a car in high volume like this… a car every 50 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Jim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The first product of this paradigm shift is a mid-size pickup, due in 2027 and priced from $30k. Meanwhile, we can expect a lot more from Ford Racing, too, whose global programme spans pretty much every form of motorsport worth being involved in. Mark Rushbrook runs that, an empire within a bigger empire, with Bill Ford\u2019s son Will \u2013 joining the company from the venture capital world \u2013 charged with leveraging the brand equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big opportunity to reinvigorate our European business,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of love for our brand in Europe, especially the UK, and we haven\u2019t really been serving the market with vehicles that people can be passionate about, like they were in the past. It\u2019s definitely a focus of ours going forward. There\u2019s good stuff coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

But back to Farley, to whom it\u2019s only right to give the last word. \u201cWe\u2019re unapologetically American,\u201d he insists, as his people gather behind. \u201cWe like loud engines. The Dakar T1+ is a great product. And you know, what should our next supercar be?\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re pondering that too, TG says… \u201cNo, we\u2019re not pondering, we\u2019ve answered it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mic drop. And with that, he\u2019s off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The locals call it a \u2018baby blizzard\u2019. It\u2019s the sort of thing that would be declared a national emergency in the UK, but Detroit powers on. Formerly America\u2019s most formidable industrial city, Motown has seen good times and, more recently, bad. But it\u2019s currently resurgent. Michigan Central Station \u2013 bought and renovated by Ford to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1847444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1847444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1847444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1847444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1847444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}